Du Bin, a 54-year-old independent journalist and photographer from China, remains in detention at a Beijing facility more than 100 days after his initial arrest. According to anonymous sources who spoke with The Epoch Times due to safety concerns, Du received a formal arrest in November of last year, and his case has now been forwarded to the procuratorate for review and potential prosecution as of late January.
The journalist has been confined at Shunyi Detention Center in Beijing since October, when law enforcement officers apprehended him at his home, according to statements from his sister and various human rights organizations. Initially, authorities informed his sister that Du faced detention under suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a broadly defined offense frequently employed by Chinese authorities to silence critics and human rights defenders.
Sources with knowledge of the situation indicate that after
investigators could not locate adequate evidence to substantiate the original accusation, authorities have shifted toward pursuing a different charge that may “involve state leaders.” The specifics surrounding Du’s arrest and subsequent case remain largely unknown, as officials have invoked “state secrecy” as grounds for withholding information from his legal representative.
While Du has faced government harassment for over ten years, this marks his first formal arrest. He previously experienced a 37-day detention in 2013. Friends informed Amnesty International during that period that his custody likely stemmed from a documentary film that revealed the mistreatment of women imprisoned at Masanjia Labor Camp.
The detention center, situated in Shenyang in northern China, gained notoriety for its brutal treatment of female prisoners, particularly those who maintained their faith in Falun Gong, also referred to as Falun Dafa. This spiritual practice, which combines meditation exercises with ethical principles emphasizing truthfulness,
compassion, and tolerance, has endured severe persecution since 1999 when Chinese Communist Party officials determined that the practice’s growing popularity posed a challenge to their control. By the late 1990s, the movement had attracted between 70 million and 100 million followers in China, and torture tactics have been integral to the ongoing effort to eliminate the practice.
Du published two books in Hong Kong in 2014 that documented former prisoners’ testimonies of torture inflicted by Masanjia guards. These accounts included graphic descriptions of guards using electric batons on female practitioners’ private areas and forcing naked practitioners into cells with male inmates.
Following his 2013 release, Du explained in an interview his motivation for covering Falun Gong, acknowledging it as China’s most sensitive subject. He told The Epoch Times in December 2014 that as human beings, the inhuman methods used against others were
unacceptable to him.
In December 2020, just days before his historical work “Red Terror: Lenin’s Communist Experiment” was scheduled for publication in Taiwan, Beijing police detained Du again under the same “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” charge. He was released after another 37-day detention period.
Independent journalists and authors like Du have faced increasing pressure in recent years as the Chinese Communist Party tightens its control over society. Beijing led the world in journalist
imprisonments in 2025, marking the third consecutive year it received this designation from the Committee to Protect Journalists, according to their latest annual report released last month.
Du’s photography work has appeared in major international publications including The New York Times, though authorities forced him to cease this work by denying him necessary permits following his book publications. His portfolio includes “Tiananmen Massacre,” which gathers firsthand testimonies from the night of June 3-4, 1989, when party leaders sent troops and tanks to crush peaceful pro-democracy student demonstrations.
International human rights organizations have condemned the campaign against Du and demanded his immediate release. Human Rights Watch stated that the charges against Du demonstrate “the growing
intolerance for dissent” under current leadership.