Rights advocates say Chinese authorities’ recent detention of dissident artist Gao Zhen and prominent citizen journalist [and former lawyer] Zhang Zhan are the latest sign of an escalating crackdown on dissent in China.
Gao, a prominent artist known for creating provocative sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong, was detained by Chinese police on August 26 for “slandering Chinese heroes and martyrs.” More than 30 police raided his studio and confiscated several pieces of artwork related to Mao and the Cultural Revolution, a tumultuous period that China’s founding leader launched in the 1960s and lasted until 1976.
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Meanwhile, Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who was released in May after serving a four-year sentence for covering the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan in early 2020, has reportedly been detained by Chinese authorities at the Pudong Detention Center in Shanghai, according to Chinese news site Weiquanwang and supporters with knowledge of the arrest.
Zhang went to Gansu Province to meet the mother of a recently detained activist but was arrested by police when she returned to her hometown Shaanxi. It remains unclear whether she has been put in administrative detention, which usually lasts 15 days, or criminal detention, which carries a much longer sentence.
Zhang’s latest detention has renewed concerns about her physical well-being. During her four-year prison sentence, Zhang staged a months-long hunger strike that caused her weight to drop to under 40 kilograms at one point.
Since her release in May, Zhang has been speaking up for other detained Chinese activists while criticizing some policies implemented by the Chinese government on Western social media platforms such as X and YouTube, which is banned in China.
Zhang wrote on the Chinese social media platform WeChat in June that local authorities in Shanghai had threatened to re-arrest her if she “crossed the red line” and said in a YouTube video in July that she possibly had been followed.
Some analysts say other dissidents’ experiences suggest that Chinese authorities tend to impose harsher prison sentences on them if they were arrested for a second time. They worry Zhang could face a similar fate.
“If Chinese activists continue to stand up for freedom after their releases, the Chinese government definitely won’t tolerate that,” Yaqiu Wang, research director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan at Freedom House, told VOA by phone, adding that she has an “ominous” feeling about Zhang’s situation.
In her view, the arrests of Gao and Zhang represent an escalation in the Chinese government’s repression against dissidents. “Gao was merely visiting China, and the works used as evidence against him were created more than a decade ago,” she said.
“This symbolizes a step further in terms of Beijing’s crackdown on dissident community, and I remain extremely worried about the fate of other Chinese dissidents,” Wang said.
China detains prominent artist, citizen journalist in latest sign of dissent crackdown
