In one of his last public acts, dissident, playwright and president Václav Havel signed this statement calling for free speech in Belarus, along with Ai Weiwei, Sir Tom Stoppard and many more
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Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been named the most powerful person in the art world in ArtReview magazine’s Power 100 poll, which rates the contemporary art world’s most influential figures.
In an interview with BBC World Service’s Global News, Ai said that he “didn’t feel powerful at all” and that he was still under a kind of detention. “Maybe being powerful means to be fragile,” he added, noting that the interview itself might land him in trouble.
Asked about the responsibility of artists, Ai said that he believed it was their duty “to protect freedom of expression, and to use any way to extend this power.” Despite the restrictions placed on him for his outspoken art and criticism of the Chinese government, Ai pledged he would continue to speak out.
The artist behind the Bird’s Nest stadium, the site of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, was released in June after being detained for more than 80 days by Chinese authorities for alleged economic crimes.
Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has attacked injustices in China in a candid and scathing article posted on Newsweek magazine’s website.
He writes of Beijing,
Beijing is two cities. One is of power and of money. People don’t care who their neighbors are; they don’t trust you. The other city is one of desperation. I see people on public buses, and I see their eyes, and I see they hold no hope. They can’t even imagine that they’ll be able to buy a house. They come from very poor villages where they’ve never seen electricity or toilet paper.
(…)
Officials who wear a suit and tie like you say we are the same and we can do business. But they deny us basic rights. You will see migrants’ schools closed. You will see hospitals where they give patients stitches—and when they find the patients don’t have any money, they pull the stitches out. It’s a city of violence.
He adds,
The worst thing about Beijing is that you can never trust the judicial system. Without trust, you cannot identify anything; it’s like a sandstorm. You don’t see yourself as part of the city—there are no places that you relate to, that you love to go. No corner, no area touched by a certain kind of light. You have no memory of any material, texture, shape. Everything is constantly changing, according to somebody else’s will, somebody else’s power.
He also alludes to his own 81 day-detention:
My ordeal made me understand that on this fabric, there are many hidden spots where they put people without identity. With no name, just a number. They don’t care where you go, what crime you committed. They see you or they don’t see you, it doesn’t make the slightest difference. There are thousands of spots like that. Only your family is crying out that you’re missing. But you can’t get answers from the street communities or officials, or even at the highest levels, the court or the police or the head of the nation. My wife has been writing these kinds of petitions every day, making phone calls to the police station every day. Where is my husband? Just tell me where my husband is. There is no paper, no information.
Ai’s remarks come just days after reports surfaced that claimed the People’s Republic was planning to give police legal powers to hold some suspects for up to six months without telling their next of kin of their whereabouts or charges against them. Human rights activists and legal scholars have said the move would legitimise, and potentially increase, detentions.
Ai’s arrest was the most high-profile in a large-scale crackdown in which dozens of Chinese activists, dissidents and lawyers were held this year. State media said he was held for “economic crimes”, though his supporters and family have claimed he was targeted due to his social and political activism. Ai was released in June “because of his good attitude in confessing” and health concerns.
After nearly two months of silence, artist Ai Weiwei, one of China’s most prominent human rights activists, is back in the spotlight. Over the past few days he’s been tweeting, and today an exclusive for one of China’s state-owned newspapers, the English-language Global Times. It is Ai’s first interview since he was released from detention back in June.
His tweets first. On Monday Ai wrote about the condition of two of his associates who were arrested alongside him in April:
Today I met Liu Zhenggang. He talked about the detention for the first time … This steel-willed man had tears coming down … He had a sudden heart attack at the detention center and almost died.
Followed by:
Because of the connection with me, they were illegally detained. Liu Zhenggang, Hu Mingfen, Wen Tao and Zhang Jinsong innocently suffered immense mental devastation and physical torment.
Ai told The Guardian that Liu had almost died from maltreatment in detention.
On Tuesday he tweeted again:
If you don’t speak for Wang Lihong, and don’t speak for Ran Yunfei, you are not just a person who will not stand out for fairness and justice; you do not have self-respect.
Wang Lihong is an internet activist who is facing trial for “causing a disturbance” last year when she helped organise a small demonstration outside a court to support three bloggers who had tried help an illiterate woman find justice after her daughter died.
Ran Yunfei, a writer and magazine editor was arrested in March, allegedly for his anti-government writings. He was released today, though he is reportedly not allowed to leave home or meet people without permission, and may not speak publicly.
Ai told CNN that he has started to tweet because “a bird needs to flutter its wings to see if it can fly.”
The Global Times’ exclusive with Ai has him photographed in shorts, presumably at his studio in east Beijing, posing with a small cat. He was “relaxed” and “flirtatious,” the journalist curiously noted.
While the newspaper boasts that Ai gave a “feisty” interview, his comments sound more like government directives than the characteristically outspoken Ai. He confirmed separately with Western media that he did indeed give the interview.
For a start there’s this:
Overthrowing the regime through a radical revolution is not the way to solve China’s problems. “The most important thing is a scientific and democratic political system.
Later he concedes, “no one is above the law.”
However, a few Ai-like quotes remain. “I will never stop fighting injustice,” he says at one point. Curiously, Wen Tao, Ai’s associate who was arrested with him in April, is a former Global Times journalist. Ai was released in June on charges of tax evasion. His supporters say the accusations have been cooked up and his arrest was in fact linked to his outspoken criticism of the government.