The family of a Chinese journalist who has been warning people about the outbreak of the Coronavirus says he has gone missing and fears he has been silenced.
Chen Qiushi, a citizen journalist who had been doing critical reporting from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, went missing earlier this week, just as hundreds of thousands of people in China began demanding freedom of speech online, CNN reports.
The journalist’s disappearance comes in the wake of the passing of Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old doctor who died of the same virus he had tried to warn others about early on. The virus has now killed more than 800 people mostly in mainland China.
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Li’s death ignited outrage across China, especially because he was punished by police for “spreading rumors.”
People called for an official apology from the government and flooded social media with the hashtag “I want freedom of speech,” a fundamental right supposedly protected under China’s constitution. The hashtag was reportedly censored by the next morning.
Now with Chen’s disappearance, friends and family say they later found out from the police that he had been forced into quarantine. By Sunday, Chen’s disappearance had started to gain traction on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, with many demanding he be released.
Chen arrived in Wuhan on January 24, a day after the city was placed under a state-imposed lockdown, designed to stop citizens from leaving to stem the spread of the virus. He started posting videos of what he saw including the overflowing hospitals and funeral parlors.
Chen’s friends said they feared he would be taken by authorities for his reporting and when he stopped answering calls early Thursday evening, they grew increasingly concerned. His close friends say Chen left them his login details to the platform, in case he was taken by the authorities. His mother uploaded a message saying her son was missing.
“I’m here to beg everyone online, especially friends in Wuhan to help find Qiushi, find out what’s going on with him,” she said.
CNN reports both the Wuhan and Qingdao city police said they had no information about Chen when they were contacted.
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