Zhang Pancheng (张盼成) is a young man from rural Gansu Province who formerly worked as a security guard at Peking University. Since 2018, he has been detained repeatedly over videos and statements criticizing Xi Jinping and China’s human rights situation.
In November 2018, he posted a video online criticizing Xi and the human rights situation in China, and questioning Beijing’s tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid. He then went missing. Friends and lawyers later confirmed that he had been arrested on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” According to his mother, he was held in Beijing’s Xicheng District Detention Center for more than four months, and the family received a notice of the arrest. A lawyer hired by the family visited him and reported that Zhang refused to admit wrongdoing, refused to write a letter of guarantee, and refused to sign the lawyer’s power of attorney. That account comes from Radio Free Asia’s April 2019 reporting.
His case went to trial at the Xicheng District People’s Court in Beijing in February 2020, and on March 31, 2020 he was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” A co-defendant, Qi Yiyuan of Jiangsu, received 24 months. Both were in their twenties and had made videos critical of Xi; Zhang’s video had also called for the release of Dong Yaoqiong — jailed after splashing ink on a poster of Xi — of labor activist Yue Xin, and of detained Uyghurs. The trial was held with participants in full COVID-19 protective gear; Zhang’s lawyer said the sentences exceeded what the prosecution had recommended.
On February 14, 2021, shortly after his release, Zhang was arrested again. The China Human Rights Lawyers Group’s New Year statement reports that he was handed a three-year prison sentence, while noting that it is unclear what crime he was charged with.
He was released in February 2024 after serving that term — Radio Free Asia’s September 2024 report dates the release to March. After release, he was continuously followed and surveilled, and local authorities repeatedly came to his home attempting to label him “mentally ill.” On July 13, 2024, he issued a statement saying that if he were detained again, he would go on a hunger strike, determined to resist until death. Shortly after, he was forcibly disappeared for several days; it was not until August 29 that his criminal detention was confirmed. ChinaAid’s reporting places him at the Heshui County Detention Center in Gansu, and reports that his two sentences — 18 months and three years — totaled four and a half years for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” over his speech.
His case drew wider attention through citizen journalist Zhang Zhan (张展). On August 25, 2024, Zhang Zhan traveled to Gansu to obtain a power of attorney from Zhang Pancheng’s family — described in rights reporting as an effort to rescue him. Shanghai police took Zhang Zhan away on August 28, 2024; she was formally arrested that November and, on September 19, 2025, sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” In March 2025, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders reported that Zhang Pancheng had been in detention without access to legal representation since July 2024, after issuing a statement denouncing the continued surveillance against him.
As of August 31, 2026, Zhang Pancheng remains listed in the detained-without-trial section of the rights-defense monthly prisoner report for Gansu. No trial or sentencing for his 2024 detention has been reported.
Status: Reported detained without trial as of August 31, 2026.
Sources: Radio Free Asia, April 10, 2019 (via Chinascope) and April 7, 2020; Dui Hua Digest, April 2020; China Change / China Human Rights Lawyers Group, January 1, 2022; ChinaAid, September 2024; Radio Free Asia, September 9, 2024; the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, March 24, 2025; Issue 131 of the rights-defense monthly prisoner report (维权网), August 31, 2026.
Media archive: Media Archive: Zhang Pancheng (张盼成)