Free Zhang Zhan – Speech at the Lin Zhao Freedom Award Ceremony
Yaxue Cao, December 7, 2021
I want to thank ChinaAid for recognizing Zhang Zhan and for allowing me to say a few words in her absence. It’s an honor, and it is also deeply sad that Zhang Zhan is dying in prison as we speak.
On February 1, 2020, Zhang Zhan boarded a high-speed train from Shanghai to Chongqing. She got off part way in Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. She was the only passenger getting off the train that night. During her 14 weeks in Wuhan, she hopped from one lodging to another around the city wherever she could find a bed. She subsisted on ramen noodles. In the 122 video clips she posted on YouTube, she spoke to shopkeepers, sanitary workers, and migrant workers, among many others.
She rode a bike all the way to the infamous Wuhan lab on a rainy day. It was locked and deserted. The off-white building of the lab where the gain of function research had supposedly been conducted was shrouded in a haze in the distance.
She visited a cremation facility one night. Standing on the sidewalk, she recorded the eerie blue light on the walls and figures in full protective gear going in and out of the building.
She visited a cemetery where she learned from a woman selling incense and paper money that families who came to bury their loved ones were kept under the strict watch of uniformed and plainclothes police. They were not allowed to make noise and not allowed to whisper to each other as they buried the deceased.
Zhang Zhan went to detention centers looking for the whereabouts of Fang Bin, a local citizen journalist who was detained in Feb.
Once she asked a security guard questions outside a residential compound, the guard said to her, “I’ll beat you to death.”
Sometimes she roamed the empty streets of Wuhan, speaking into her camera. She criticized the tyrannical lockdown and mandatory “health pass,” characterizing the relation between the people and the government as “cover-up on one hand and use of force on the other.” Her experience in Wuhan only solidified her beliefs in free speech and transparency.
The rest of the story we already know. She was arrested in May 2020, and sentenced to four years in prison last December. She has been on hunger strike since June 2020. She has lost half of her body weight, and was tied to bed and force fed. According to what we heard in late October, she could not walk without two people popping her up. She’s dying behind bars in Shanghai Women’s Prison.
Incidentally, Lin Zhao was also imprisoned in Shanghai more than half a century ago where she was executed for opposing the Communist rule.
I confess that I don’t understand Zhang Zhan: I cannot fathom her resolve with which she has protested the unjust persecution against her and what she stands for. For most of us, “to live free or die” seems to have become a slogan, but for Zhang Zhan, it’s practice.
However, the point is not whether you and I understand Zhang Zhan or not; the point is to ask ourselves this question: if the rest of us had had one tenth of Zhang Zhan’s strength and determination to stand up to the totalitarian regime in China, what difference would we have made? What a different place would we be today?
Finally, I want to make an appeal to President Biden: Please speak to Xi Jinping, and demand that China release Zhang Zhan immediately.
I do wonder: is it too much to ask for the President of the United States to appeal to China for Zhang Zhan’s life and her cause?
Thank you very much.
自由张展 – 在林昭自由奖颁奖仪式上的发言
曹雅学，2021年12月7日
感谢ChinaAid对张展的嘉奖，并允许我在她缺席的情况下说几句话。我深感荣幸，也深感不配。同时我们也深感悲伤，因为就在我们说话的此时此刻，张展在监狱中生命垂危。
2020年2月1日，张展登上了从上海到重庆的高速列车。她在武汉中途下车，那里是新冠病毒爆发的中心。她是那晚唯一下车的乘客。在武汉的14个星期里，她为找到一个床位，从一个住宿点转到另一个。她靠吃方便面度日。在她发布在YouTube上的122个短视频中，她与店主、清洁工、农民工等许多人交谈。
在一个雨天，她骑着自行车一路去到如今名声昭著的武汉病毒研究所。那里大门紧锁，冷冷清清。据称进行功能获得研究的浅色建筑笼罩在不远处的湿雾中。
一天晚上，她造访了一个火化厂。站在人行道上，她拍下了墙壁上阴森的蓝光和穿着全套防护装备的人进出大楼一个侧门的情景。她去了一个公墓，一个卖香和纸钱的妇女告诉她，前来埋葬亲人的家属在穿制服和便衣警察的严格监视下，不许出声，不许相互耳语。张展还去拘留所寻找方斌的下落，方斌是一名当地公民记者，于2月被拘留。
当她在一个住宅区外向一名保安提出问题时，她遭到了死亡威胁。 “我打死你，” 保安对她说。
有时她在武汉空荡荡的街道上游荡，对着手机说话。她批评当局实施不人道和暴虐的封锁以及强制性的 “健康证”；她将人民和政府之间的关系描述为“掩盖真相和使用强制力”。她在武汉的经历更加巩固了她对言论自由和政府透明的理念。
故事的其余部分我们已经知道了。她在2020年5月被逮捕。自2020年6月以来她一直在绝食抗议对她的抓捕；去年12月，她被判处四年监禁。她已经失去了一半的体重，被绑在床上强制喂食。根据一个多月前的消息，她需要两个人搀扶才能行走。她在上海女子监狱的铁窗下生命垂危。附带说一句，林昭在半个多世纪前也是被关在上海的一所监狱，并遭到枪决。
坦率地说，我不懂得张展。她抗议不公、坚持理念的决绝非常人所能想象。对我们大多数人来说，“不自由，毋宁死”好像已经变成一句口号，但对张展来说，这是实践。
然而，要点不在于你和我是否理解张展。重要的是，我们要问自己这个问题：如果我们其他人有张展的十分之一的力量和决心来对抗中国的极权主义政权，世界会有多么不同，如今又会是一个多么不同的境况？
最后，我想向拜登总统发出呼吁：请与习近平通话，要求中国立即释放张展。
请美国总统为张展的生命和她所代表的自由信念向中国发出呼吁，这个要求不过分吧？
谢谢各位。
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