(Beijing — December 3, 2025) According to Chinese documentary filmmaker Du Bin’s younger sister, Du Jirong, her brother, who worked for multiple international media outlets, was taken away by police in Beijing on October 15 and has been held at the Shunyi Detention Center for nearly 50 days. Family members say authorities have opened a case against him on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” but have refused to provide any legal documents related to his arrest.
Du Jirong said the incident occurred one day before Du Bin was scheduled to travel to Japan on October 16. She stated that police had previously restricted Du Bin’s ability to leave the country and then took him away during an operation by the Gaoliying Police Station in Beijing’s Shunyi District.
“I could not reach my brother. I inquired of the local police, and only then did I learn something had happened,” she said. Since Du Bin’s detention, she has repeatedly requested that the case handling unit issue a legally mandated arrest warrant, but all requests have been denied.
Beijing police have not made any public statements regarding the case.
Du Bin was born in 1972 in Tancheng, Shandong Province. He had previously worked for Beijing Youth Daily, Workers’ Daily, and Law and Society Weekly. Beginning in 2004, he shot news photos for The New York Times’ Beijing bureau, and his work has also appeared in the International Herald Tribune, Time magazine, The Guardian, and Germany’s Stern. Beginning in 2011, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied him press credentials.
In China, he is best known for his 2013 documentary, Above the Ghosts’ Heads: The Women of Masanjia Labor Camp, which he filmed and released in Hong Kong. It exposed allegations of torture at the Masanjia Women’s Re-education Through Labor facility in Liaoning Province. He also published Vaginal Coma: Testimonies of Torture Survivors from the Masanjia Women’s Labor Camp, which includes the accounts of 12 victims. The film and book describe methods such as electric shocks, suspension torture, and sexual violence, drawing significant public attention.
He was secretly detained in Beijing in June 2013 and held at the Fengtai Detention Center before being released.
In past interviews, Du Bin said he completed such reporting under enormous pressure, motivated by a desire “to be a human being.” He said he did not care about the religious background of interviewees, only that “they are a human being first.”
In 2014, he published his book The Tiananmen Massacre abroad, further increasing the sensitivity of his situation within China. In December 2020, he was again detained by Beijing police for more than a month before being released.
As of now, the family has been unable to obtain information about the progress of the case. Du Jirong said she only wishes for the authorities to handle the case according to law and provide “the documents that should be issued as part of due legal procedure.”
Reported by Special Correspondent Gao Zhensai for ChinaAid