Chinese ‘Great Firewall’ critic Zhang Jialong ‘jailed for 18 months’

Zhang detained in August 2019 and his wife says family learned of sentence last week

In 2014, former journalist urged then US secretary of state John Kerry to tear down China’s online censorship barriers

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Former Caijing journalist Zhang Jialong was detained in August 2019. Photo: Twitter

Published: 12:24pm, 10 Jan 2021Updated: 8:55pm, 10 Jan 2021

A Chinese former journalist who once urged the United States to help “tear down” Beijing’s online censorship regime has been sentenced to a year and a half in jail, his wife said.

Zhang Jialong’s sentence on Friday comes more than a year after he was detained by police for “picking quarrels and provoking troubles”, an accusation often used against human rights activists and dissidents in China.

Zhang, 32, made headlines in 2014 when he met former US secretary of state John Kerry in Beijing and requested his help to “tear down the Great Firewall of censorship”.

The firewall refers to the country’s restrictions on citizens that prevent them from accessing international sites such as Google, or reading online news critical of the Communist Party.

Zhang’s wife Shao Yuan said on Saturday that she learned of his sentence from his lawyer on Friday, sparking mixed feelings about the outcome.

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