A Chinese citizen journalist was jailed on Monday for four years for her Livestream reporting from Wuhan as the Covid-19 outbreak unfurled, her lawyer said, almost a year after the virus first surfaced in the central China city.

Zhang Zhan, aged 37, was sentenced after a brief hearing in Shanghai, Ren Quanniu, one of her defence lawyers, told reporters. Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, faced up to five years in jail for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" for her reporting in the chaotic initial stages of the outbreak.

Her live reports and essays were widely shared on social media platforms in February, grabbing the attention of authorities, who have punished eight virus whistleblowers so far as they defang criticism of the government's response to the outbreak.

In Shanghai, police enforced tight security outside the court where the trial opened seven months after Zhang's detention, although some supporters were undeterred. A man in a wheelchair, who told Reuters he came from the central province of Henan to demonstrate support for Zhang as a fellow Christian, wrote her name on a poster before police arrived to escort him away.

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