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Professor Zhang Yongzhen breached a government ban by revealing the genome of the Covid virus shortly after it emerged in Wuhan in 2020.
By Keith Bradsher
Reporting from Beijing
A well-known Chinese scientist who defied a Chinese government gag order by being the first to leak the genome of the Covid virus into a global database 4 years ago staged a rare protest this week in Shanghai after being kicked out of his lab.
Scientist Zhang Yongzhen had been running a lab in Shanghai since 2018, but discovered over the weekend that the facility had been cordoned off and one of his colleagues locked inside, according to Chinese media reports. Zhang’s keycard had been canceled, and the elevators were turned off.
On Sunday night, he began sleeping outdoors, on crushed cardboard, in front of the locked blue doors at the entrance to the lab, according to photographs posted online by students. One of the images showed at least five security guards.
Another media outlet, the online of a state-run news outlet in Shandong province, reported on Dr. Zhang’s sit-in on Monday, quoting him as saying, “I’m still waiting for the challenge to be solved, but no one has come to solve it. “he.
Accounts of Dr. Zhang’s ordeal sparked a public outcry on Chinese social media, with thousands of others posting thousands of comments on the report in Shandong provincial media. Many of them criticized the Shanghai government and its public gymnasium, which owns the lab, for being a prominent scientist.
Early Wednesday morning, Dr. Zhang wrote in a post on his social media account that his team had been allowed to resume laboratory research. He thanked his academics and those who had expressed their help to him online, and said discussions were underway until an ongoing dispute over payment for his past paintings and their continued employment.
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