Article 293 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China reads as follows:

Whoever commits any of the following acts of creating disturbances, thus disrupting public order, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years, criminal detention or public surveillance:

1. beating another person at will and to a flagrant extent;
2. chasing, intercepting or hurling insults to another person to a flagrant extent;
3. forcibly taking or demanding, willfully damaging, destroying or occupying public or private money or property to a serious extent; or
4. creating disturbances in a public place, thus causing serious disorder in such place.

The final act listed in the Article above is often summarized as “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” (寻衅滋事 – xúnxìn zīshì). This ill-defined crime is frequently used to arrest and detain human and civil rights activists, political dissidents, writers and journalists. Clouded in vagueness and secrecy, one can only guess at the scope of this criminal law and its enforcement. The cases that do reach the international media are just the tip of the iceberg.

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