Zhang Zhan’s sentence reminds us of Beijing’s lies and censorship about the origins of the virus
While everyone is still wondering about the miraculous disappearance of Covid-19 in China due – according to the regime's propaganda – to the effective fight against and prevention conducted by the Communist Party, news arrives of the conviction of Zhang Zhan, lawyer, blogger and activist Democrat who immediately tried to inform the international community about what was happening in Wuhan last winter, at the beginning of the epidemic.
We will recall the images relating to the very first phase of the pandemic, with the wards of hospitals invaded by dying patients, people who collapsed in the streets affected by high fever and the intervention of the military who immediately sealed the city. Beijing has never provided precise information about the origins of the virus. Did it really spread starting from the Wuhan wet market ? Or was it the tragic outcome of a scientific experiment that ended badly?
Nobody knows anything about it yet and few dare to talk about it. The People's Republic has instead tried to block the investigative attempts of the World Health Organization, a body in which it has great influence. And then he also circulated news aimed at spreading the thesis that the virus has no Chinese origins at all, but was actually born in other countries among which – as we know – even Italy has been indicated.
Meanwhile, Zhang Zhan appeared in a wheelchair before the court that sentenced her. And, even in this case, it is impossible to understand if this is due to a hunger strike that seriously weakened her, or to any torture she suffered during the months of detention. The questions posed by some Western diplomats to ascertain the truth have not received – as always, anyway – an answer.
The courageous activist's YouTube channel and Twitter account, which had become a reference point for all those who wanted to get first-hand news from Wuhan, were promptly blacked out. And other less famous bloggers who tried to spread information on an epidemic that, in those days, seemed limited to the Chinese context, have had no better fate. In short, it was not yet perceived as a global pandemic.
Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison by the Shanghai court, under a very vague law on "offenses against public peace". This law is actually a tool used very often by the authorities against dissidents of all kinds, and in particular the defenders of human rights (who in the People's Republic do not have the slightest room for maneuver).
It is the same strategy used against the democratic leaders of Hong Kong, but also adopted in other parts of the country whenever someone questions the authority of the state and the Communist Party, which in China are the same thing.
The great fault of Zhang Zhan and other activists is having questioned the government narrative of the origins and developments of the pandemic by providing alternative news. And this is obviously a mortal sin in the eyes of the authorities.
The latter are in fact engaged in a massive propaganda operation aimed at convincing world public opinion that the virus has been definitively defeated in China. Hence the images of huge crowds of people, generally without protective masks, crowding the Great Wall and other symbolic places in Chinese history, such as Tiananmen Square.
And, even more importantly, the spread of extremely positive news about the country's economic recovery, with GDP growing again and the ever closer goal of replacing the United States as the first world power. Also taking advantage of the fact that, after the last elections, the US is going through a phase of weakness.
It may also be true, as many argue, that China is no longer a Communist country, in the sense that the Soviet Union and its satellites were in the last century and, in our time, dynasty-dominated Cuba and North Korea. Castro and Kim.
Yet the propaganda prowess is exactly the same in Beijing, Havana and Pyongyang. It works both internally to convince citizens to live in the best of all possible worlds, and externally, where the American crisis and, in a broader sense, the crisis of liberalism procure previously unexpected attention to dictatorial regimes.
In Italy it is easy to see how Chinese propaganda, despite everything, works great, attracting admirers even in government forces. But the same can be said about the entire European Union. It is a serious and dangerous fact since China, unlike the former USSR, is truly a great economic and commercial power, which can afford to propagate its model abroad with economic aid and targeted investments. Before it is too late, a comprehensive Western reflection on this problem is desirable.
The post Zhang Zhan's conviction reminds us of Beijing's lies and censorship on the origins of the virus appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/rubriche/la-condanna-di-zhang-zhan-ci-ricorda-le-menzogne-e-la-censura-di-pechino-sulle-origini-del-virus/ on Wed, 30 Dec 2020 05:04:00 +0000.