Famous human rights defender and citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, sentenced to four years, is currently detained in Ward 5 of Shanghai Women's Prison

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On August 12, 2026, this outlet learned that, according to the Zhang Zhan Support Group, the famous human rights defender and citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who was sentenced to four years, is currently detained in Ward 5 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, 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 held 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 articles online criticizing current affairs and was forced to leave the legal profession; dissatisfied with the political situation under the Chinese Communist Party authorities, she spent a long period publishing comments on online platforms criticizing "one-party dictatorship," corruption, abuse of power and other matters, and because the content was sharp and highly targeted, she was repeatedly summoned for questioning, interrogated and threatened by Shanghai police;

Since 2019, because she extensively reposted videos and graphic materials about Hong Kong's "anti-extradition" protests on WeChat and other social media software, and especially because she held an umbrella on the streets of Shanghai and demanded an end to the socialist system and the Communist Party's removal from power, 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 subjected twice to compulsory "psychiatric evaluations," and was not released on bail until November 26;

Since early 2020, after the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic began spreading, she traveled to Wuhan in person to conduct on-site investigations and reporting on the epidemic, braving the risks in order to obtain first-hand data; this quickly provoked the extreme dissatisfaction and swift suppression of the Chinese Communist Party 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 Shanghai Pudong New Area People's Court; on December 28, 2020, the court sentenced her at first instance to four years' imprisonment for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," with her sentence ending on May 13, 2024; it was learned that her family's requests to visit her in prison had long been refused; after she went on a prolonged hunger strike in prison in protest, she was force-fed, leaving her in extremely poor physical condition. Zhang Zhan had previously been serving her sentence at Shanghai Women's Prison.

On August 25, 2024, after traveling to Gansu to rescue Zhang Pan'cheng, she was again arrested by the authorities on August 28 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 in court: she was found guilty of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" and sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Sentence ends: August 28, 2028. She had previously been detained at the Pudong Detention Center. She has now been transferred to Ward 5 of Shanghai Women's Prison.

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