Published: July 8, 2013
BEIJING — A Chinese journalist and documentary filmmaker whose work has been harshly critical of life in China was released on bail Monday after spending five weeks in a Beijing jail.
The journalist, Du Bin, said in an interview hours after his release that he could still face trial for “picking quarrels and making trouble,” accusations he said stemmed from his recent film about a Chinese labor camp and a book about the crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters. The charges against him carry a maximum five-year prison term.
Over the coming year, he said, the authorities could still try him on those charges, adding that his movements would be largely restricted during that period. “It all depends on whether the police are unhappy with me,” he said, speaking from the home of his girlfriend.
His lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang, said the terms of Mr. Du’s release on bail were not entirely clear, which he said was most likely intentional, perhaps as a way to constrain his behavior.
Mr. Du, 41, who has worked as a freelance photographer for The New York Times, has published a number of books outside mainland China in recent years that have been pointedly critical of the Chinese Communist Party. They include a history of the famine caused by Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward of the 1950s, and another that included graphic accounts of the torture endured by members of Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement.
It was his most recent two works that drew the most attention of the authorities: an hourlong documentary about conditions at the notorious Masanjia “re-education through labor” camp in northeast China and a book that compiled firsthand accounts describing the military’s violent suppression of the 1989 pro-democracy protests. The book, “Tiananmen Massacre,” was published in late May by Mirror Books, which has offices in New York and Hong Kong.
Mr. Du said the police seemed particularly interested in how much money he had received from the book, perhaps because they sought to charge him with economic crimes. “They were disappointed when I told them I hadn’t made a cent,” he said.
Mr. Du said his 37 days in detention were unpleasant – especially during his initial 20 hours of interrogation — but that his jailers did not mistreat him. He said he shared a cell with nearly two dozen other inmates, most of them arrested over petty crimes. Over the five weeks of detention, he said, he lost a considerable amount of weight.
Despite the uncertainty of whether he would be formally arrested and tried, Mr. Du said he felt at ease during most of his time at the Fengtai District detention center. “I was relaxed because I knew I hadn’t committed any crime,” he said. “I did what everyone should be doing, which is to tell the truth.”
He said he was surprised that the police did not warn him before setting him free against talking to the media about his experience, an admonishment often given to political dissidents upon their release. “This,” he said, “is progress for China.”
Patrick Zuo contributed research.
