Second Anniversary of the Imprisonment Again of Renowned Human Rights Defender and Citizen Journalist Zhang Zhan

On August 28, 2026, this outlet learned that today marks the second anniversary of the second arrest of citizen journalist and human rights defender Zhang Zhan.

Zhang Zhan was first sentenced to four years in prison and was released after completing her sentence on May 13, 2024. Thereafter, she continued to voice support for rights defenders through social media. More than three months later, on August 28, 2024, she was arrested again, during which she once again protested by hunger strike and was again subjected to forced feeding; on September 19, 2025, Zhang Zhan was once again sentenced to four years in prison for the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble.

She is currently being held in Ward Five of the Shanghai Women's Prison. Address: No. 1601 Zhangjing Road, Sijing Town, Songjiang District, Shanghai, postal code: 201601

Zhang Zhan's profile: Female, born on September 2, 1983, from Xianyang, Shaanxi Province, a resident of Pudong New Area, Shanghai, formerly an executive at a securities company in Shanghai, a former practicing lawyer, citizen journalist, human rights defender, and political prisoner in China.

In her early years, she studied finance at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics and obtained a master's degree; beginning in 2010, she left her hometown to seek employment in Shanghai; she once willingly gave up a high-paying position at a securities company in pursuit of her ideals of freedom; she worked as a lawyer but was later retaliated against for publishing online articles criticizing current political and social problems, forcing her to leave the legal profession; dissatisfied with the political status quo under the Chinese Communist authorities, she for a long time published comments on online platforms criticizing “one-party dictatorship,” corruption, abuse of power and other issues, and because of their sharp and highly targeted content, she was repeatedly interviewed, summoned and threatened by Shanghai police;

Since 2019, because she extensively forwarded videos and graphic materials about Hong Kong's “anti-extradition” protests on WeChat and other social media, and especially because she held an umbrella on the streets of Shanghai and called for an end to the socialist system and the downfall of the Communist Party, she was criminally detained by police in Shanghai's Huangpu District on September 9, 2019, on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”; during this period, she was twice subjected to compulsory “psychiatric evaluations,” and was not released on bail pending trial until November 26;

Since early 2020, following the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic, she went to Wuhan in person to conduct on-the-ground investigations and report on the outbreak in order to obtain firsthand data, without fear of the risks; this action quickly provoked extreme dissatisfaction and swift suppression by the Chinese Communist authorities;

On May 14, 2020, she was taken away by Wuhan police from a temporary lodging hotel, and the following day was criminally detained by police in Shanghai's Pudong New Area on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”; on June 19, she was formally arrested by the Pudong New Area Procuratorate; on September 18, her case was transferred to the Pudong New Area People's Court of Shanghai; on December 28, 2020, the court sentenced her at first instance to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” with her sentence running until May 13, 2024; it is understood that her family's requests to visit her in prison were repeatedly rejected over a long period; because of her prolonged hunger-strike protest in prison, she was force-fed, leaving her in extremely poor physical condition. Zhang Zhan had previously been serving her sentence at the Shanghai Women's Prison.

On August 25, 2024, she went to Gansu to rescue Zhang Panchen; on August 28, she was arrested again by the authorities and criminally detained. She was formally arrested on November 18, 2024. She was later indicted, and her trial was held at the People's Court of Pudong New Area, Shanghai, on September 19, 2025. The court announced its verdict in court: she was found guilty of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and sentenced to four years in prison. Sentence ends: August 28, 2028. She had previously been detained at the Pudong Detention Center. She has now been transferred to Ward Five of the Shanghai Women's Prison.

This outlet will continue to follow Zhang Zhan's situation in prison.