Lawyer and citizen journalist Chen Qiushi gained popularity in early 2020 for documenting the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in its epicenter in Wuhan over the course of two weeks. But his videos, which showed fear, confusion, and chaos in a city with up to 11 million residents was believed to have been censored by the Chinese government. In February 2020, Chen disappeared.
"Over the past year and eight months, I have experienced a lot of things. Some of it can be talked about, some of it can't," a letter posted to Chen's Twitter account read, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. He also made a short appearance on a friend's live video feed on YouTube. The letter in part said, "I believe you understand."
Chen's videos gave an unfiltered glimpse into what was going on in Wuhan during the early days of the pandemic, when the public had limited information about COVID. His videos earned a large audience and was viewed millions of times on the popular WeChat social media platform before his account was taken down. Chen then posted videos to YouTube, which is blocked in China.
In some of his videos, he interviewed people whose family members succumbed to the disease, while in another, he spoke to a citizen journalist who was approached by Chinese authorities.
"I'm not even scared of death. You think I'm scared of you, Communist Party?" Chen declared in a video posted a week before his disappearance after sharing with his audience that Chinese authorities had contacted him and his relatives and ordered him to go back to his hometown.
After Chen and two other citizen journalists disappeared in March 2020, U.S. Congressman Jim Banks called upon the State Department to pressure China to investigate the disappearance of the three citizen journalists in Wuhan. China's then ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai denied hearing about Chen and responded to the U.S. by asking it to "respect the judiciary procedures" of China.
Former state-media staffer Li Zehua, another citizen journalist who reported independently from Wuhan during the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak in China went missing around the same time Chen did but reappeared two months later in an online video. He has since lived a more private life. The third citizen journalist who went missing, Fang Bin, remains unheard of to this day.
"They don't want us to know what we want to know," Zehua said in February 2020 before he was taken by Chinese authorities, news.com.au reported. "Now all the bad news about the epidemic has been collected by the central government. The local media can only report on good news."
Another citizen journalist, Zhang Zhan, also went missing in May 14 after she posted a video about government neglect in handling the pandemic. A Christian, Zhang started fasting at the end of June to pray against the injustice she and other Chinese citizens who spoke out and were unjustly imprisoned for it are facing.
"I believe in Christ, and I often pray to God to forgive the wicked. I pray that He will save those in pain and suffering," Zhang told one of her lawyers, Ren Qianniu.
Zhang was sentenced to four years in prison for reporting on the Wuhan outbreak. She was later transferred to Shanghai Women's Prison and her family was prohibited from visiting her.
LADBible reported that back in September 2020, a human rights lawyer who asked not to be named said that Chen had been returned home to his parents but was under strict supervision by Chinese authorities. The lawyer said, "Since the authorities have decided not to prosecute him, it is actually not lawful to continue to keep him in close surveillance."
It took him a year to resurface online, a positive development for his loved ones and those who cared about his safety and a glimmer of hope that Fang may one day share the same fate.
