Lawyers for the Zion Church case defendants file complaints: Defendants must report even when scratching an itch; 30 people detained in a 60-square-meter room; heat rash and skin diseases caused by temperatures above 34°C with no air conditioning or fans

On June 30, 2026, this outlet learned that on the morning of June 29, 2026, lawyer Lin Qilei, representative of Pastor Yin Huibin, and lawyer Lu Siwei, representative of Wu Qiuyu, accompanied by several colleagues, went in the rain to the Beihai Municipal Public Security Bureau, the Public Security Bureau of Yinhai District, Beihai, the Beihai Procuratorate, the Yinhai District Procuratorate in Beihai and other departments to file complaints concerning the illegal conduct of the Yinhai District Public Security Bureau of Beihai in handling Pastor Yin Huibin’s case, as well as the failure of Beihai No. 1 Detention Center to safeguard the defendant’s lawful rights.

According to the complaint letters, we found that the conditions and management at Beihai’s detention center were abysmal:

1. No air conditioning or fans in the exercise yard during the extreme heat, resulting in heat rash and skin diseases;

2. Food allowances are withheld and the quality of meals is a serious concern: winter melon soup and winter melon dishes every day, unclean vegetables, meat with hair on it, and undisinfected tableware that can easily transmit infections;

3. Restricted activity inside the cells: a cell of 60 square meters holds around 30 people, and the beds may be used only during sleeping hours and free-activity periods; free-activity periods are short and the space is small; the exercise yard is 40 square meters, with an open skylight, and rarely receives sunlight. Bites from poisonous insects: the ground beneath the bed boards is soil, and in summer there are many centipedes, ants and mosquitoes; people are often bitten.

4. Insufficient medical care and medication; poor-quality medicines, most of them traditional Chinese patent medicines, with few Western medicines.

Wu Qiuyu has been deprived of the right to medical treatment;

5. Harsh management: movement is restricted for most of the time, causing contraction of the sphincter, prostate problems and difficulty urinating; prolonged sitting causes hemorrhoids; even scratching an itch requires raising one’s hand and reporting it.

6. Shortage of books: each person has only two books

7. Communication restrictions: letters may be only one page long and are collected once a week; for many people, the communication cycle exceeds one month.

Other than an argument that occurred while negotiating with reception staff at the Beihai Municipal Public Security Bureau—the staff member said that the municipal bureau had a special-case task force reception office at the Yinhai District Public Security Bureau of Beihai, and that all materials concerning Zion Church should be submitted to the district bureau—all the other departments accepted the materials in accordance with regulations, registered them, and said they would handle them according to procedure.