A Chinese court handed a four-year jail term to a citizen journalist who reported from the central city of Wuhan at the peak of last year’s coronavirus outbreak, on grounds of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” Reuters quoted her lawyer as saying.

Zhang Zhan, 37, the first such person known to have been tried, was among a handful of people whose firsthand accounts from crowded hospitals and empty streets painted a more dire picture of the pandemic epicentre than the official narrative.

“I don’t understand. All she did was say a few true words, and for that she got four years,” said Shao Wenxia, Zhang’s mother, who attended the trial with her husband.

Zhang’s lawyer Ren Quanniu told Reuters: “We will probably appeal,” adding that the trial at a court in Pudong, a district of the business hub of Shanghai, ended at 12:30pm. “Ms Zhang believes she is being persecuted for exercising her freedom of speech,” he had said before the trial.

Criticism of China’s early handling of the crisis has been censored, and whistle-blowers such as doctors warned. State media have credited the country’s success in reining in the virus to the leadership of President Xi Jinping.