Chinese authorities have formally charged well-known journalist and author Du Bin (杜斌) with "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," Human Rights Watch said today.
Police in Beijing took Du, 53, into custody on October 15, 2025, a day before he had scheduled trip to Japan, his sister said in a statement. He has since been held at Beijing's Shunyi Detention Center. He faces up to 5 years in prison under article 293 of China's Criminal Law, and up to 10 years if found to be "seriously disrupting public order."
"The baseless charges against a prominent journalist like Du Bin highlight the growing intolerance for dissent under Xi Jinping's leadership," said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The authorities should free Du Bin immediately and unconditionally and drop all charges."
Du's arrest appears to be related to his books, which the authorities allege "attack national leaders." However, Du's family have said that they have yet to receive notice of a formal criminal arrest or charge, in apparent violation of the notification requirements in China's Criminal Procedure Law.
This is the third time that the authorities have detained Du, but the first time he has been formally charged (逮捕).
The authorities detained Du for a month in 2013 for releasing a documentary, "Above the Ghosts' Head: The Women of Masanjia Labour Camp," and a book, "The Tiananmen Massacre." He was detained for a month in 2020 for allegedly "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" because of his books critical of the Chinese government. Du's books, all published abroad, include the "Changchun Hunger Siege," a historical account published in 2017 about the deaths from starvation of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Changchun during the Chinese civil war.
Du previously worked as a journalist and photographer for various domestic and international outlets, including the New York Times, Beijing Youth Daily (北京青年报), and Workers' Daily (工人日报).
Under Xi Jinping's leadership for the past decade, the authorities have arrested and prosecuted a number of Chinese journalists in violation of their rights to freedom of expression and association. Reporters Without Border has reported that 121 journalists are currently detained in China.
In November, Beijing's High Court upheld a seven-year sentence for Dong Yuyu, 62, a journalist arrested in February 2022 on espionage charges while he was having lunch with a Japanese diplomat. Dong had been writing for a Chinese government newspaper, Guangming Daily, for 35 years before his arrest.
In September, a court sentenced a citizen-journalist, Zhang Zhan, 42, to four years in prison for "picking quarrels and provoking troubles." Zhang had previously served four years in prison under the same article for her reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan.
After Zhang's second conviction, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said the crime of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble … given its broad wording and the wide scope of its potential application to those exercising their rights, including freedom of expression and association," is "at variance with China's international human rights obligations."
In June 2024, a court in Guangzhou sentenced a feminist activist and journalist, Huang Xueqin, 37, to five years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power" for her writing, including about the 2019 Hong Kong protests and her role in the #MeTooMovement.
In Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai, 77, a prominent pro-democracy media tycoon and owner of the shuttered Apple Daily is facing up to life in prison on two fabricated "foreign collusion" charges under Hong Kong's draconian National Security Law.
"Concerned governments should publicly raise Du Bin's case with the Chinese government and press for his immediate and unconditional release," Uluyol said. "By bringing baseless charges against its critics, Beijing is merely broadcasting to the world the fragility of its rule."
