Foreign Media Reports Another Disappearance of Chinese Citizen Journalist Exposing Wuhan Conditions... Second Case After Tian Chus

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Min-young] The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 15th (local time) that a citizen journalist who had been exposing the situation on the ground in Wuhan, China, the origin of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), through videos has gone missing again.

According to the foreign media, following the well-known video blogger Chen Qiushi, who has been out of contact since the 6th, a local clothing vendor named Pang Bin has suddenly disappeared.

NYT reported that they share the commonality of having posted dozens of unfiltered videos showing long lines outside Wuhan hospitals, weakened patients, and suffering relatives before going missing.

Unlike Chen Qiushi, a lawyer-turned-citizen journalist who had already gained fame last year for reporting on the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, Pang Bin was a relatively unknown clothing vendor before the COVID-19 outbreak.

Pang Bin became famous on the internet for a 40-minute video capturing eight body bags placed in the slightly open door of a beige van parked outside a hospital in Wuhan during the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis. In the video, he said, "Too many people have died."

In a video on the 2nd, Pang Bin revealed that authorities confiscated his laptop and interrogated him about the circumstances of filming the body bag footage. Then, on the 4th, people came to his home saying they wanted to ask him questions and filmed those standing outside his house. When he did not comply with their demands, it was reported that they broke down his front door.

In his last videos filmed on the 9th, he strongly criticized the Chinese power structure. According to NYT, in one video, Pang Bin said he was surrounded by plainclothes police and made remarks such as "lust for power" and "dictatorship." In his final 12-second video, he showed a paper that read, "All citizens resist. Return power to the people."

According to the Washington DC-based human rights organization Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), more than 350 people across China have been punished for "spreading rumors" related to COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Chinese state media have emphasized President Xi Jinping's leadership and approached the "war against the virus" from a patriotic perspective, NYT pointed out.