As a reminder that there is no true freedom in communist China, a journalist has been sentenced to four years in prison for reporting on Covid-19. The following is excerpted from “This Brave Woman Reported Covid-19,” PJMedia, Dec. 28, 2020: “On Monday, a Chinese court sentenced a lawyer-turned-citizen-journalist who traveled to Wuhan to report on COVID-19. Authorities first detained her in May after her livestream reporting in Wuhan. The government charged her with ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble.’ A Chinese court sentenced the journalist, 37-year-old Zhang Zhan, to four years in jail, her lawyer Zhang Keke told reporters outside the courtroom. Zhang reportedly began a hunger strike in June, but she has been force-fed via a nasal tube. China has punished eight virus whistleblowers so far. The Chinese Communist Party lied to cover up the coronavirus pandemic early on, and waited until after 5 million people had already left Wuhan before locking down the city at the center of the outbreak. The party also reportedly destroyed early samples of the virus and silenced doctors who tried to warn the world about it. A University of Southampton study found that if the Communist Party had enacted quarantine measures three weeks earlier, the coronavirus spread would have been reduced by 95 percent. When the World Health Organization (WHO) tweeted that the coronavirus might transmit from person to person, the Chinese government told the WHO to remove that statement, and the WHO complied. China has even threatened U.S. senators by name who dared to call Beijing to account for its malfeasance.”
(Friday Church News Notes, January 1, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)