Chinese author Fang Fang has covered the pandemic since the initial outbreak in a virtual diary from Wuhan, ground-zero for the outbreak.
Fang used Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, to share her experiences of isolation and struggle with the increasingly brutal Zero-Covid policies in China.
Unable to get reliable information from the CCP controlled press, millions of Chinese turned to her coverage for a realistic view of what was happening, something the CCP could not allow.
The CCP has done everything they can to silence her, including banning her books.
Fang lives in virtual isolation now, under constant scrutiny by the government.
“I am not permitted to participate in any social activities, I am not permitted to publish any essays, have any of my new work published, or my old work reprinted,” she said in an interview with the Sunday Times of London this week. “For a professional writer like myself, this is the greatest punishment they could hand out.”
In the interview, conducted by email, Fang called the government’s treatment of her a form of “cold violence.”
“All of these repercussions I am facing are simply because I recorded my experiences during the lockdown in Wuhan and published a book entitled ‘Wuhan Diary,’” she said. “I did not break a single law or violate a single rule. The whole thing is extremely bizarre and utterly unimaginable.”
Following widespread protests earlier this month, the Chinese government was forced to reverse of its “zero-COVID” policies.
Fang said she began writing her daily chronicles at the suggestion of an editor at a Chinese literary journal. “That gave me the impetus to start recording things, I began to post a record of what was happening,” she said. “The diary seemed to provide consolation for many readers.”
Fang received numerous death threats, which increased when Michael Berry, the director of the University of California’s Center for Chinese Studies, began to translate her posts into English under the title “Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City.”
Now, her phone is tapped and she is subject to surveillance when she leaves her home, Fang told the Times of London.