China: Li Zehua reappears in six-minute video

Chinese citizen journalist Li Zehua suddenly appeared in the evening of April 22 in a video uploaded to YouTube after disappearing almost two months ago. In the six-minute video, Li Zehua recounts the events that led to his disappearance in Wuhan on February 26.

He said that an unknown car chased after him that evening with the people in the car shouting at him to stop. Not knowing the identity of the persons, he decided to accelerate in order to escape the white RV. "They chased me all the way. I drove straight ahead, down the road under the Second Ring Viaduct, all the way south to the Third Ring Road. After about ten minutes, they did not catch up with me again," he said.

Li Zehua continued for 30 kilometers, returning to his residence in Wuhan. He began to broadcast live on his laptop. Shortly after, several public security officers wearing protective clothing appeared at a door opposite his house. They seemed to be asking whether there were any persons with fever symptoms in the area. "I judged at the time that if it was the person who had just chased me outside the door, they might not have been able to determine whether I had returned to my place of residence, or which house I was in. So I hurriedly turned off the lights and sat quietly at the computer," he said.

According to Li, the public security officers began knocking on doors one by one until they reached his residence. "They knocked for a while and then stopped," he said. "There was no movement outside the door. I sat down in front of the computer and didn't move a muscle." However, three hours later, the public security officers came to Li Zehua's door again, this time accompanied by two of his friends. They stressed that he would be fine as long as he opened the door. 

He opened the door. They identified themselves as public security. Li Zehua’s camera was still recording. Several men in public security uniforms entered the house and tried to talk to him. He packed his things and was taken to the police station in Wuhan's Qingshan District. After completing the basic procedures, he was informed that he had been summoned by the public security authorities on charges of allegedly "disturbing public order."

"For 24 hours, I sat on that iron bench and interacted with a lot of officers who came to question me. It wasn't until after eleven o'clock on the evening of February 27 that the director told me in all seriousness and decided not to deal with me," he said in the video. The police station chief also told him that, as he had been to the areas in Wuhan affected by the epidemic, it was "in the interest of his health and that of others," and that the local health committee in the Qingshan district of Wuhan would conduct a medical observation on him.

The police station director took him personally to the quarantine point and asked his friend to "temporarily keep" all of his electronics. He then began a 14-day quarantine. "During the quarantine, there were three meals a day, security and guards, and we were able to watch the news every day," he said. At the end of the quarantine, seven people from Wuhan's health care committee picked him up from the quarantine hotel and sent him back to his home for a second quarantine.

"Throughout the process, the police enforced the law civilly and ensured that I was rested and fed. They cared for me too. I've been spending time with my family since the end of quarantine and am currently planning for this year," he said. He thanked all those who had paid attention to him, stating: "God bless China and may the people of the world unite." 

Suspicion raised on the video

Like Zehua, lawyer and citizen journalist Chen Qiushi and businessman Fang Bin also disappeared from Wuhan in February. They also disappeared after using videos to document the local closure of Wuhan. At present, there is still no news of the two men.

However, with his latest appearance, Li Zehua is sharing his videos differently from before where he shared them mainly through YouTube and Twitter. This time, he uploaded the video to Weibo before uploading it on YouTube and Twitter. Meanwhile the video has been removed from Weibo.

Weibo user Xia Xia commented she couldn't understand why Li Zehua’s Weibo video was removed. Another user raised eight questions about the content of the video, including why all of his electronic devices were confiscated during quarantine and why he had waited so long to record the video if he had been back home for weeks.