Sir – Your editorial (November 23rd) about Peng Shuai rightly asserted the Chinese Communist Party regime will have to do more to convince the world she is not being subjected to coercion.
However, an even bigger issue is how her plight illustrates the nature of the repression in China and how people are kept in line – even famous figures like Peng. Failure to acknowledge the implications of that repression on us is not only immoral but irresponsible as the case of citizen journalist Zhang Zhan starving to death in prison proves.
Zhang Zhan tried to report on the gross mismanagement of Covid in the early days of the pandemic in Wuhan like a number of others. The government responded in the same way it tried to censor Peng’s allegation of sexual assault through censorship and forced disappearances. However, we must ask if the alarm had been raised earlier about the pandemic in Wuhan how many deaths might have been averted?
In other words, what happens in China matters a great deal to all of us and not just economically.
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Failure to stand up for human rights as Covid shows could again prove fatal for many. This means demanding Zhang Zhan is granted medical parole because her family has warned unless she is released she will die in prison as she will not accept the state has the right to make journalism a crime and will continue her hunger strike. – Yours, etc,
RONAN L TYNAN
East Wall,
Dublin 3.