Media Archive: Zhang Chao (张超), monastic name Shi Daoguo (释道果).
This archive preserves the documented record on Zhang Chao, a Buddhist monk from Zaozhuang, Shandong, known by his monastic name Shi Daoguo (释道果), whose case illustrates how remembrance of June 4 remains a forbidden act even when expressed by a religious figure through a photograph and a poem. See his Person Profile.
Case chronology
- 2014 — Detained for more than a month after warning petitioners in Beijing that police were conducting searches (reported by 权利运动/维权网; Bitter Winter corroborates a detention of more than a month in 2014).
- July 24, 2019 — Detained by the Shanting branch of the Zaozhuang public security bureau; placed under criminal detention on suspicion of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble” (权利运动/维权网). Bitter Winter reports he was later sentenced on that charge.
- June 4, 2026 — Visits Tiananmen Square, takes a photograph, and posts it with a short poem of remembrance to his social media account; the post is soon deleted (Bitter Winter; 权利运动/维权网).
- June 5, 2026 (early hours) — Detained by officers from the Zaozhuang branch of the domestic-security police and taken from Beijing; he cannot be contacted, described by 权利运动/维权网 as in enforced disappearance; whereabouts unknown (Bitter Winter, as of its June 2026 publication).
- August 31, 2026 — 维权网’s monthly report on mainland China’s political prisoners (Issue 131) lists 张超（释道果） in its A–Z index of current detainees.
Source record
The June 2026 detention is documented by two independent reporting lines: the Chinese rights-reporting network 权利运动/维权网 (information-center report, June 5, 2026) and the independent outlet Bitter Winter (article by Wang Yichi, June 2026). Both describe the same sequence — a June 4 Tiananmen commemoration post followed by a pre-dawn June 5 detention by Zaozhuang domestic-security police — and both give the same biographical anchors: born Zhang Chao in 1970, Zaozhuang (Shandong) rights advocate, monk known as Shi Daoguo, the 2014 detention, and the 2019 detention.
Evidentiary limitations
- No formal charge for the June 2026 detention has been publicly reported; no court document or official statement was located. His status since June 5, 2026 rests on rights-reporting and the August 2026 roster listing.
- Precise details of the 2019 sentence (term length, sentencing court) were not established in this pass.
- The name Shi Daoguo appears only in the roster’s A–Z index (no sentence-group or individual case entry), consistent with a recent detention rather than a finalized sentence.