(Beijing, China – Oct 14, 2024) According to reports, 51-year-old Christian Zhu Bin, founder of the “Deep Breath Learning Center” for special needs children in Beijing, was criminally detained on September 29, 2024, by the Haidian District Public Security Bureau on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” due to his long-term pursuit of justice and compassion.
The detention notice states: “In accordance with Article 82 of the Criminal Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China, our bureau criminally detained Zhu Bin, suspected of picking quarrels and provoking trouble, at 20:00 on September 29, 2024. He is being held at the Haidian District Detention Center in Beijing.”
Zhu Bin has long been concerned with social justice and has been a voice for public events while engaging in charitable activities. In March 2017, he founded the “Deep Breath Learning Center” for special needs children in Beijing to help them grow up healthy. Since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, he has been fundraising for COVID-19 patients and disaster-affected people across the country, doing a lot of charitable work.
He is also a literature enthusiast and has authored poetry collections such as “The Breath of Ants” and “Watching a Tree Grow.” After the “Chained Woman Incident” in Xuzhou (Feng County), came to light in January 2022, where a mentally ill woman was repeatedly trafficked and abused, Zhu Bin actively spoke out about the issue. He printed out online petitions calling for a thorough investigation of the incident and mailed them to the National People’s Congress, which resulted in police harassment and questioning.
During the 2019 Hong Kong protests, Zhu Bin also spoke out for Hong Kong on social media. Here is a poem he wrote titled “Light Is a Sin”:
Always one wound covers another wound
There’s no time even to feel the pain
What drowns you
Are the people rushing and calling out for you
In an era thirsting for sleep
Light is a sin
But you have burned us
Even the night has become a refuge
The aftereffect of pain is strong
Permeating every corner of labor and laughter
The distance looks so fierce
Why do we move forward
But you were suddenly taken away
Leaving behind a long road and memories
Under the sunlight, above the floating clouds
The sky is always blue
—— Zhu Bin in Beijing, thinking of the Hong Kong university students arrested on June 12 and 13
After Zhang Zhan was arrested in 2021, he also wrote a poem advocating for her. This poem “Zhang Zhan, Please Stay Alive” was written on November 6, 2021:
You must ignore the guards on all four sides
To sit peacefully in Yannan Garden in late autumn
When the cold shackles clank behind your head
Red leaves cover the ground, I clearly
See the suffocation of the old father
Those silhouettes disappeared in Wuhan
We all muster our last bit of courage
Anger like stars in the deep night
The start of winter is coming
All answers will point to oneself
Gather up the autumn thoughts from a stroll in Langrun Garden
Quietly await the spring rain, beat swords into plowshares
Bury oneself like seeds at the time of grain in ear
Many years later, people will say
It was your courage that awakened my silence
The specific reason for Zhu Bin’s current criminal detention is still unclear. Arresting Zhu Bin before China’s National Day may be the result of the authorities’ long-term monitoring of dissidents and using the catch-all crime of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” to implement speech control.
(Reported by special correspondent Ningmeng)
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