Wuhan Whistleblower Resurfaces, Says Police Forced Him to 'Quarantine'

A Wuhan citizen journalist who went missing two months ago while reporting on the coronavirus reappeared on Wednesday and said he had been forcibly quarantined by police, the New York Post reported on Wednesday.

Li Zehua was last seen on February 26 while documenting the Chinese coronavirus cover-up in the city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in China late last year.

On February 26, Li Zehua live-streamed what he said were Chinese state security agents entering his apartment in Wuhan. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), this was the last time he was seen, sparking serious concern for Li.

CPJ says that Li, a freelance journalist, first traveled to Wuhan to investigate the disappearance of another journalist covering the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, Chen Qiushi.

On Wednesday, Li resurfaced, recounting his story in a video posted to his social media feeds, which the Guardian translated in a report on Wednesday.

Li claims that the three men he filmed confronting him at his apartment on February 26 took him to a police station and charged him with disrupting public order. However, police later said they would not charge Li. Instead, they told him he would have to undergo a quarantine because he had visited “sensitive epidemic areas.”

Authorities made Li hand over all of his electronics to a friend and he was monitored by security guards in quarantine.

“Throughout the whole time, the police acted civilly and legally, making sure I had rest and food. They really cared about me,” Li said in his video, according to the Guardian.

Li then claimed he was not under arrest, but “freed” from police and quarantined on March 28 with his family. “May God bless China and the people of the world unite,” he said in the video.

According to the Guardian, Li’s “neutral and patriotic” tone in Wednesday’s video was “markedly different” from his previous videos, in which he proudly declared that he planned to “stand up” against any Chinese state cover-ups surrounding the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

“I don’t want to remain silent, or shut my eyes and ears,” Li had said in earlier videos, according to the report.