The Representing Lawyer of Renowned Human Rights Defender Zhang Zhan, Sentenced to 4 Years, Was Refused a Prison Visit; Her Condition in Detention Is Cause for Concern

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On April 1, 2026, this website learned that the representing lawyer of renowned human rights defender Zhang Zhan was refused a request to visit her at the prison, after previous requests by lawyers to meet with her had also been repeatedly denied.

According to a March 28, 2026 notice from the Zhang Zhan Concern Group, a lawyer’s application to visit Zhang Zhan at the prison was denied. Since Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison on September 19, 2025, authorities have repeatedly refused, obstructed, and threatened lawyers seeking to meet with her. While Zhang Zhan was held in a detention center, two lawyers who had been retained by her family were even kidnapped in Shanghai at one point and pressured to withdraw. Zhang Zhan was again arrested and persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party on August 28, 2024, and has now been imprisoned for a full 17 months. She has never compromised and has remained in a state of semi-fasting, sometimes being force-fed. She is physically weak and suffers from severe stomach problems.

The Concern Group said that they are extremely worried that Zhang Zhan has been deprived of her right to appeal and to meet with a lawyer; while isolated from the outside world, she is unable to receive timely treatment for her illness, and may also be abused for refusing to cooperate with the prison’s “education and reform,” placing her life at risk.

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

Early on, 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 freedom and her ideals; she worked as a lawyer but was later retaliated against for publishing articles online criticizing current abuses, and was forced to leave the legal profession; dissatisfied with the political reality under the Chinese Communist Party authorities, she published critical comments on online platforms for a long period concerning “one-party dictatorship,” corruption, and abuse of power, and because of the sharp and pointed nature of her content, she was repeatedly summoned for interviews, questioned, and threatened by Shanghai police.

Since 2019, she was detained on September 9, 2019, by police in Shanghai’s Huangpu District on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” for extensively reposting videos, images, and written materials relating to Hong Kong’s “anti-extradition” protests on WeChat and other social media applications, and especially for walking through the streets of Shanghai holding an umbrella and calling for an end to the socialist system and the downfall of the Communist Party. During this period, she was subjected to two compulsory “psychiatric evaluations,” and was not released on bail until November 26.

Since early 2020, following the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic, she traveled to Wuhan to conduct on-site investigations and reporting on the epidemic in order to obtain first-hand data, despite the risks; this quickly provoked extreme dissatisfaction and an immediate crackdown by the Chinese Communist Party authorities.

On May 14, 2020, she was taken from a temporary lodging facility by Wuhan police, 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 Shanghai Pudong New Area People’s Court; 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 ending on May 13, 2024. It is reported that her family’s requests to visit her in prison were denied for a long period; because she engaged in a prolonged hunger strike in prison as a protest, she was force-fed, leaving her in extremely weak physical condition. Zhang Zhan had previously been serving her sentence at Shanghai Women’s Prison.

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

This website will continue to follow Zhang Zhan’s condition in prison.