2nd Anniversary of the Re-imprisonment of Renowned Human Rights Defender and Citizen Journalist Zhang Zhan

(Rights Defense Network Information Center Report) On August 28, 2026, this website learned: Today marks the second anniversary of the re-arrest of citizen journalist and human rights defender Zhang Zhan.

Zhang Zhan was first sentenced to 4 years and was released upon completing her sentence on May 13, 2024. Since then, she has continued to support rights activists through social media. More than three months later, on August 28, 2024, she was arrested again, during which she once again went on a hunger strike and was subjected to force-feeding; on September 19, 2025, Zhang Zhan was sentenced to 4 years in prison again for the crime of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble."

She is currently detained in the Fifth Ward of Shanghai Women's Prison. Address: No. 1601 Zhangjing Road, Sijing Town, Songjiang District, Shanghai, Postal Code: 201601

Zhang Zhan's Biography: Female, born on September 2, 1983, a native of Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, and a resident of Pudong New Area, Shanghai. She formerly worked as a senior executive at a securities company in Shanghai, is a former practicing lawyer, a citizen journalist, a human rights defender, and a political prisoner detained in China.

In her early years, she studied finance at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics and obtained a master's degree; since 2010, she left her hometown to seek employment in Shanghai; she was willing to give up a high-paying job at a securities company to pursue her ideals of freedom; she worked as a lawyer but was later forced to leave her legal practice due to retaliation for publishing articles criticizing current affairs online; dissatisfied with the political status quo of the CCP authorities, she had long published comments on online platforms criticizing the "one-party dictatorship", corruption, and abuse of power. Because of the sharp and targeted nature of her content, she was repeatedly summoned, interrogated, and threatened by the Shanghai police;

Since 2019, because she extensively forwarded Hong Kong "Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill" protest videos, text, and images on social media apps like WeChat, and especially for holding an umbrella on the streets of Shanghai to demand an end to the socialist system and for the Communist Party to step down, she was criminally detained by the Huangpu District Police in Shanghai on September 9, 2019, on suspicion of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble." During this period, she was subjected to mandatory "psychiatric evaluations" twice, and was not released on bail pending trial until November 26;

Since early 2020, as the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic spread, she feared no risks and went personally to Wuhan to conduct on-site investigations and reports on the epidemic to obtain first-hand data; this action quickly met with extreme dissatisfaction and swift suppression by the CCP authorities;

On May 14, 2020, she was taken away by the Wuhan police from a hotel where she was temporarily staying, and the next day, she was criminally detained by the Shanghai Pudong New Area police on suspicion of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble"; on June 19, her arrest was formally approved by the Pudong New Area Procuratorate; on September 18, her case was transferred to the Shanghai Pudong New Area Court; on December 28, 2020, she was sentenced to 4 years in prison in the first instance by the court for the crime of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," with her term ending on May 13, 2024; it is reported that her family's requests to visit her in prison were denied for a long time; due to her long-term hunger strike protest in prison, she was force-fed, leaving her physical condition extremely weak. Previously, Zhang Zhan had been serving her sentence in Shanghai Women's Prison.

On August 25, 2024, she went to Gansu to rescue Zhang Pancheng and was arrested again by the authorities on August 28 and placed under criminal detention. She was formally arrested on November 18, 2024. She was later prosecuted, and on September 19, 2025, her trial was held in the Pudong New Area People's Court of Shanghai. The court announced the verdict on the spot: guilty of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," and sentenced her to 4 years in prison. Her prison term runs until: August 28, 2028. Previously detained in Pudong Detention Center, she has now been transferred to the Fifth Ward of Shanghai Women's Prison.

This website will continue to monitor Zhang Zhan's situation in prison.