庞培（Pompeo）抨击中国共产党的量刑记者，他们报道冠状病毒 4 入狱多年

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Pompeo warns Chinese espionage targeting, infiltrating US colleges

Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin has the latest on ‘Special Report’

国务卿 迈克·庞培 condemned China’s sentencing of a journalist who reported on 新冠肺炎 to four years in prison, saying that the Chinese Communist Party will do “whatever it takes” to silence those who question it.

“The United States strongly condemns the People’s Republic of China’s (中华人民共和国) sham prosecution and conviction of citizen journalist Zhang Zhan on December 28. We call on the PRC government to release her immediately and unconditionally,” 庞培在一份声明中说.

“中国共产党 (中共) has shown once again it will do whatever it takes to silence those who question the Party’s official line, even regarding crucial public health information.”

“Lying is a feature, not a bug of authoritarian regimes,” Pompeo added.

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Zhang, 37, was sentenced to four years in prison Monday after she reported on crowded hospitals and the conditions in Wuhan earlier this year. Reports said she was convicted on the offense of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”

Zhang had posted videos on YouTube that showed interviews with residents and images of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

She was critical of the response and eventually detained in May. “The government’s way of managing this city has just been intimidation and threats,” she said in one video, 根据《纽约时报》. “This is truly the tragedy of this country.”

路透社, citing her lawyer, 已报告 that there will likely be an appeal and said his client believes she is “being persecuted for exercising her freedom of speech.”

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Pompeo said that the world had “heavily relied” on the information provided by Zhang and other citizen journalists after the CCP restricted and manipulated coronavirus information at the start of the outbreak. “Her hasty trial, to which foreign observers were denied access, shows how fearful the CCP is of Chinese citizens who speak the truth,” 声明读.

The Trump administration has repeatedly blamed Beijing for the pandemic, accusing the CCP of lying about human-to-human transmission of the virus and other vital COVID-19 information, allowing the disease to spread across the world.

在六月, senior Chinese officials released a lengthy report on the country’s response and defended Beijing’s actions.

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“The Chinese government did not delay or cover up anything,” National Health Commission Chairman Ma Xiaowei said at the time. “代替, we have immediately reported virus data and relevant information about the epidemic to the international community and made an important contribution to the prevention and control of the epidemic around the world.”

福克斯新闻’ Edmund DeMarche contributed to this report.