The Shanghai Prison Administration received a letter on November 6th. He reached me eight days later through an email from Chinese human rights activist Wang Jianhong. The letter contained the following lines, among other things: “I am Zhang Ju, Zhang Zhan's older brother. My sister is currently detained in the Fifth Prison Division of the Shanghai Women's Detention Center; her prisoner number is 27997. In August 2021, we were able to speak to a doctor and also to Zhang Zhan over the phone in the detention center's visiting room. At that time, we learned that Zhang Zhan was very weak physically and weighed less than forty kilograms. Zhang Zhan is 1.77 meters tall and her normal weight was sixty to 65 kilograms. Since Zhang Zhan was transferred to the Women's Detention Center from Pudong Detention Center,her body has deteriorated for various reasons. I asked the doctor if Zhang Zhan could die from it. He replied that it was very likely. "
Images from the Wuhan Virus Research Institute
Zhang Zhan is a Shanghai-based video blogger born in 1983 who, prior to her arrest, primarily focused on the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, where she traveled in February 2020.
She posted 122 videos recorded there over the course of ten weeks;
the longest with almost 22 minutes was posted on April 27, 2020 on YouTube.
Its title reads: "A visit to the mysterious Wuhan Virus Research Institute: Is there a connection to the origin of the coronavirus?" Seventeen days later, the Shanghai police exceeded their authority and arrested her in another province on charges that Zhang Zhan had "caused unrest" .
As a result, she was sentenced to four years in prison.
In his letter of November 6th, Zhang Ju continued, "On October 29th, my mother was notified by the detention center to come over for a video interview with Zhang Zhan. Your weight is now believed to be less than forty kilograms. The Zhang Zhan my mother saw was even weaker than we heard on the phone in August. She needed the help of others to walk, and her neck could no longer support the weight of her head. My mother was so shocked that she fell on her knees in front of the guards and asked for better care from Zhang Zhan. "
Zhang Ju's letter concludes: "Zhang Zhan's current state of health already qualifies for 'exemption for medical treatment.'
But regardless of the relevant laws and regulations or humanitarian principles, we ask permission to apply for Zhang Zhan to be released from prison for medical treatment.
We understand that your case is delicate.
For my family I can say that we are ready to meet the necessary requirements of the police, detention center and other relevant institutions. "
"My sister will probably not live much longer"
My thoughts these days belong mainly to the words that Zhang Zhan's desperate brother recently published on Twitter: “My sister will probably not live long.
She will not survive the coming cold winter.
I hope the world will remember her as it was. "
What can I do other than a few scant appeals and mentions?
Beckett's immortal drama "Waiting for Godot" has turned into "Waiting for the god of the dead" in this case.
Millions of Chinese follow the fate of Zhang Zhan.
You all know that the god of the dead will appear, be it in the prison cell or as with the Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who was officially "pardoned for medical treatment" in 2017 but died in captivity.
We await the news of Zhang Zhan's death.
Two months ago I finished my new book “Wuhan”.
Now I have written to my German publisher: “The fictional and non-fictional characters in this book are disappearing one after the other.
Zhang Zhan, the last one, is not yet missing, but now she is dying. "
Liao Yiwu
, born in 1958 in the Chinese province of Sichuan, is a writer and winner of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade;
since 2010 he has been living in exile in Berlin.
His documentary novel “Wuhan” will be published by S. Fischer at the end of January.
Translated from the English by
Andreas Platthaus.