US, EU Raise Concerns About Whereabouts of Chinese Citizen Journalist Supposedly Released From Prison

The U.S. government and the European Union have expressed concerns about the well-being of a Chinese citizen journalist who was jailed for covering early COVID-19 outbreaks in China. Zhang Zhan, 40, a former lawyer, traveled to China’s pandemic epicenter of Wuhan in early February 2020 to report on the local situation. Her social media posts and videos were often critical of the measures taken by Chinese authorities to stop the spread of COVID-19. Three months later, she went missing in Wuhan, and later, it became known that the police in Shanghai had arrested her. In December 2020, Ms. Zhang was convicted of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a charge the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often uses to imprison dissidents. She was sentenced to four years in prison, which drew criticism from the international community....