A mainland Chinese filmmaker has been charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” over a documentary about the rare nationwide protests against the government’s strict Covid-19 restrictions in late 2022.
Chen Pinlin, known by the pseudonym Plato, was arrested in Shanghai on January 5 after releasing a film on the “white paper movement” to mark one year since the protests, Chinese human rights group Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch said. The movement was named for the blank sheets of paper – a symbol of censorship – that protesters held up.
He was detained at a facility in Shanghai’s Baoshan District and charged last Sunday with the catchall “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” offence, the group said. The charge is commonly used against those who criticise the regime or discuss topics considered politically sensitive.
The white paper movement saw anti-government protests span major cities in China in late 2022. The demonstrations were sparked by a fatal fire in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, in which lockdown rules under China’s zero-Covid policy were said to have hampered escape and rescue efforts. Protesters were arrested, although there are no official figures showing the scale of police action.
See also: ‘We can never go back to normal’: A year on from China’s ‘white placard’ zero-Covid protests
Some of the biggest protests were in Shanghai, where demonstrators gathered on Wulumuqi Road – named for the Chinese romanisation of Urumqi – to call for an end to pandemic restrictions and demand government accountability.
According to InMedia, a Reddit user posted a thread on November 27 last year stating they had created a documentary about the white paper movement. The thread was still active as of Friday afternoon, but the user’s account has been deleted.
“Simply put, I made this myself. I took part in the protests on Urumqi Road in Shanghai. With the one-year anniversary, [I] produced this documentary, Not the Foreign Force, on the protests in Shanghai and did my best to present the before and after of the situation,” the post in Chinese read.
The documentary is called “Urumqi Road” in Chinese.
The Reddit post was accompanied by a link to a YouTube video, which is no longer accessible. The hour-long documentary is still available on other accounts and social media platforms.
‘Merely doing their job’
According to Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, Chen said when introducing his documentary that the protest in Shanghai on November 26, 2022, was his first time taking part in a political activity in China and his first time making political demands.
“After [the protests], the Chinese government contradicted facts and maliciously smeared [the protesters], leading many people who did not know better to believe that the Shanghai protests and white paper [movement] were a result of foreign forces,” Chen said in Chinese. “But is that really the truth?”
Media watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on Chinese authorities to “immediately release” the director and drop the case.
“The arrest of Chen demonstrates China’s fear of genuine reporting on its authoritarian practices,” Iris Hsu, CPJ’s China representative, said. “Chinese authorities should immediately release and drop all charges against Chen and stop detaining journalists and documentarians who are merely doing their job to cover issues of public concern.”
Chen’s YouTube and X accounts have also been deleted, media outlets reported.
The CPJ statement added that China was the world’s “worst jailer of journalists,” with at least 44 behind bars as of early December. According to media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders’ 2023 press freedom index, China placed 179 out of 180 countries and territories.
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