Chinese journalist Shangguan Yunkai is serving a 11-year prison term on the charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and “selling fake medicine.” Police in the central city of Ezhou arrested Shangguan, a freelance reporter who covered alleged corruption, on April 20, 2023, at a tea house, and held him in pre-trial detention for more than eight months.
According to news reports and a source familiar with the case who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, Shangguan’s daughter, Shangguan Zhiwei, was also arrested on the charge of “selling fake medicine.”
The charge against Shangguan relates to advertisements for a balm at the end of the journalist’s articles, according to those reports and a video—which CPJ reviewed and has since been removed—by his son Shangguan Xuke, who said the balm was not meant for medical use.
However, the source familiar with the case and the human rights website China Political Prisoner Concern said the arrest was retaliation for Shangguan’s reporting. The day before his arrest, he published an article about police in an Ezhou courtroom beating a plaintiff in 2021.
Shangguan has reported on Hubei province for the state-run newspaper Legal Daily and his blogs Huangxiao Native Egg and the now-removed Life in Queensland for more than 20 years. He covered topics such as alleged forgery by agricultural authorities in the Nanbu county of Sichuan Province and the government's forced demolition of private properties in Ezhou.
Shangguan’s lawyer Wang Guiyi said in a social media post that he was allowed to visit the journalist at the detention center on April 27, 2023. Wang said in a post on Weibo, which CPJ reviewed and has since been removed, that he faces threats of disbarment from Ezhou authorities.
On January 5, 2024, a court in Ezhou sentenced Shangguan to 15 years in prison and fined him 380,000 renminbi ($52,808) for the crime of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble, bigamy, fraud, and illegal detention.” Shangguan filed an appeal, and a second court reduced his sentence to 11 years on September 10, 2024.
The source familiar with the case told CPJ that Shangguan has lost a lot of weight in prison and is outraged about the verdict.
CPJ’s request for comment sent to the Ezhou Public Security Bureau via messaging app in late 2024 did not receive a response.