On February 7, 2020, officials confirmed the death of Dr. Li Wenliang, the first COVID-19 whistleblower in China who warned people worldwide about early infections in Wuhan. The Chinese internet saw an outpouring of grief and fury online that poses an extraordinary challenge to Beijing. In response, China began its crackdown on whistleblowers. Li Wenliang was later coined as a “revolutionary martyr” in a wall of medical staffers who died from COVID. However, his brief biography did not include his reprimand for trying to warn colleagues about the coronavirus. Others, however, have not been lucky enough to be remembered.
On April 19, 2019, Chen Mei did not log on for work. He was held under house detention for his involvement in the operation of Terminus 2049. Terminus 2049 is a crowd-sourced repository on GitHub that archives content removed from Chinese websites and social media platforms by government censors. Many of the most recent articles on Terminus 2049 are about COVID-19. Since the coronavirus outbreak began in China in December 2019, government monitors have censored media reports and online posts that criticize or discuss the government’s responses to the pandemic. Chen Mei was just one of the many whistleblowers who CCP illegally detained.
Dr. Ai Fen, one of the first doctors to raise the alarm on the spread of a new coronavirus outbreak in 2019, was interviewed by her hospital’s Disciplinary Committee and accused of spreading the rumors. She later called...
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