China’s journalists say it all started with the death of Dr Li Wenliang – a whistleblower whose attempt to warn the country about the coronavirus outbreak was silenced by the government, reported The Independent.

After contracting the disease, he passed away on Feb 6.

The death of the doctor triggered a major outrage in China and in the social media platforms when citizens even initiated a short-lived online campaign demanding freedom of speech.

Relevant posts were deleted by the Chinese government within hours, but the incident further strengthened citizens’ determination to preserve the truth of the coronavirus outbreak, reported the British newspaper.

“Li Wenliang was a normal guy with a good conscience and people see themselves in him,” Yaqiu Wang, China researcher at Human Rights Watch, told The Independent. “His death illustrates that anyone could die in this system of deception, suppression and zero accountability," he told the newspaper.

According to reports, several independent journalists at that point even tried to reveal the real picture in Wuhan region.

Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua were briefly popular after uploading rare video footage from Wuhan to Youtube and Twitter. However, all three were soon forced into disappearance by the government in February and have not been seen in public since, reported The Independent.

“The government doesn’t want Chinese citizens to have access to information that contradicts the official narrative, so they always try to silence whistleblowers by taking them out of the picture,” Chen told The Independent.

“Their disappearance reminds me that as a journalist, there are certain duties that I’m supposed to fulfil when the government tries to bury all the truth – I have the responsibility to write down what I have seen and experienced during the outbreak.

“Many people have been detained for speaking up about the truth, and I honestly am expecting that something similar will happen to me sooner or later.”

The Chinese government has resorted to the move of censoring sensitive contents online to silence its critics, reports said.

Hu Jia, a prominent Chinese activist, is no stranger to the wide range of methods that Beijing uses to oppress anyone who hopes to reveal truth during major crises.

On 31 January, hours before he was scheduled to join a talk show on Radio Free Asia (RFA) to talk about the coronavirus outbreak, several police knocked on the door of Hu’s residence, asking him what he’d been up to, reported The Independent.

“Then they asked whether I’ve been accepting media interviews, and warned that I shouldn’t be stabbing the Chinese government’s back when the whole country was united to fight against the coronavirus,” Hu said.

Hu said police quarreled with him and even warned that if he insisted on joining the show on RFA, that would leave them with no choice but to “follow the drill”.

“They quarrelled with me until they made sure that I wouldn’t be able to make it for the Radio Free Asia’s talk show,” Hu told The Independent. “I brought my cellphone with me, in case producers from Radio Free Asia wanted to reach me. But the police made it really clear that if I tried to use my phone while quarrelling with them, they would use extreme measures against me.” 

He was later put under house arrest for 16 days.

“I have been detained multiple times since in 2001, yet every time I was arrested for comments I made, it made me understand the reason why freedom of speech is so important to a functioning civil society,” Hu said. 

“Unfortunately, I also paid a huge price for defending freedom of speech. I need to sacrifice my personal freedom, dignity and safety in order to keep raising awareness.”

Despite all efforts made by citizen journalists, experts now believe that it is China which is winning the battle at the end.

“The Chinese government has been increasingly restricting the use of VPNs by Chinese citizens, and we can expect that their moves will make circumvention over the internet censorship even harder for citizens in the future,” Wang from HRW told The Independent.

“They can also just silence whoever they want by arbitrarily detaining them.”

She even said that the Chinese government is spreading misinformation.

"China's external propaganda effort in free societies has largely been a failure, despite huge investment. But the Chinese govt is learning. Instead of inundating the free cyberspace with stiff propaganda, it is increasingly spreading disinformation -- to sow doubts and confusion," she tweeted.

Images: Pixabay/Pen America/Wallpapers