Silenced: Ai Weiwei and the People

Ai Weiwei tossing his ceramic sunflower seeds into the air.
Photo by: The Guardian

Ai Weiwei is a well-known contemporary Chinese artist. He is famous for his co-design of the Beijing bird's nest stadium for the Olympics and for his Sunflower Seeds exhibition at Britain's Tate Modern. Although recently all you hear about him (or don't) involves the tax fraud charges brought by the Chinese government. 


Weiwei has been very critical against the Chinese government when it comes to human rights issues. The Telegraph published a timeline of his movement at the beginning of this month:

                  "2009: publishes a list of 5,835 names of students killed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake on his blog. This lead to his blog being shut down and he claims he was detained and beaten by police for trying to testify on behalf of his fellow investigator, Tan Zuoren, about the poor construction that lead to student casualties in the earthquake.

                   March 2010: takes part in an event entitled "Digital Activism in China" hosted by the Paley Media Centre in New York.

                   Nov 2010: placed under house arrest by the Chinese police to allegedly prevent the planned demonstrations against the demolition of his Shanghai studio.

                    April, 2011: arrested at Peking Airport just before catching a flight to Hong Kong.

                    June 2011: released on bail after close to three months' detention on charges of tax evasion. Chinese authorities said he confessed to tax evasion but his family denies he evaded any taxes. They say he is being targeted for criticizing the Communist government

                    October 2011: Ordered to pay 15m yuan in back taxes and fines. Ai says he won't pay until his design company's account books are returned and he discusses the matter with his former office manager and accountant. He has not been allowed to see them."

It isn't surprising that the Chinese government would silence Ai Weiwei. They certainly don't have a problem with shutting people down. In August, the Chinese government released a draft of the amendment changes that they were proposing that would allow Chinese police officers to perform secret arrests and investigations. 

GlobalVoices posted anonymous commentary along with their story:

"Despite the negotiation among the public security, procuratorial and peoples' courts organs, the lawyers and the scholars, there are still some hidden problems in some of the clauses. For example, clause 84 has become the focus of public attention: “Upon arrest, the suspect should be sent to a detention center within 24 hours. With the exception that the police are unable to contact the suspect's family, or if the case involves national security, terrorist activities or serious criminal activities, and if the process would obstruct the investigation, the police should notify the family members within 24 hours regarding the reason and the location of the detention.” Such exceptions also appear in “house arrest”, “arrest” and other coercion measures.

… It implies that under the above mentioned circumstances, the suspects could “be detained according to the law” and their family members would not receive any notification. This is the clause that violates fundamental human rights and that the public finds most scornful.”

Another recent example of Chinese censorship is the social networking site, Sina Weibo, shutting down German newspaper, Deutsche Welle's account. The technical term for what happened to the German account is "re-incarnating" as punishment for posting "sensitive topics."  This basically means that the account holder must recreate their account and accumulate followers back from zero. 

I thought this was humorous. Here's the link:
http://chinachannel.fffff.at/

Honestly, I get so frustrated with the politics of the world. China is a member of the United Nations and is a permanent member of the UN's Security Council. China also has a judge on the International Court of Justice and I'm sure they hold seats in specific committees.  Despite all this China consistently suffocates any form of free speech, expression and many other basic human rights. I know that China isn't the only one, but you would think that such a technically advanced and powerful country in the economic and political world would at least allow basic freedoms. Is it really that difficult? Perhaps the Arab Spring will rub off on the Chinese people. 

For more on Ai Weiwei click on his name...
Also, some of you may find this interesting, China: Enforced Disappearances.