10 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost
In his most outspoken tweets since his release, and despite bail conditions placing him under tight restrictions for at least a year, Ai Weiwei today lashed out at the “torment” of friends entangled in his situation and pressed the cases of other detained activists. “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,” he wrote. A prolific Twitter user prior to his arrest, Ai was freed in June after being detained for over two months for supposed tax evasion. Last weekend he began tweeting again, though far more sporadically.
27 Jun 11 | Asia and Pacific, China
After serving a three-and-a-half year sentence for inciting subversion, Chinese activist Hu Jia was sent home on Sunday.
But like Ai Weiwei, who surfaced from detention last week, Hu is far from free.
His wife told the BBC that he is being held under conditions “equivalent to house arrest.”
Media have published plenty of photos today showing crowds of non-uniformed police outside their apartment block in Beijing’s eastern suburbs.
Hours after his release, Hu spoke by phone to Hong Kong media, telling them that he will be careful in the future.
“Once I saw my family, I understood how much I owe them, especially my parents, my wife and my kid,” Hu told iCable News. “I realise I’ve done nothing for them. There is a Chinese saying that ‘patriotism and filial piety don’t go hand in hand’.”
Both Hu and Ai, once strident critics of aspects of the Chinese political system, now appear hobbled and cowed.
And this is just how the government wants them to appear, as a lesson to other would-be critics of the Party.
True to form, the English-language Global Times, a Chinese state mouthpiece, has an opinion piece today on Hu. The paper frequently covers news Chinese domestic media tend to shy away from.
The editorial, headlined: “Questioning West’s campaign to create a hero” is an oddly-worded critique of how the west only champions those were are anti-Chinese government.
It also warns Hu that his time in the limelight will be short-lived.
“The West will forget about China’s “social activists” soon, just as the “democratic activists” of 20 years ago [an oblique reference to the Tiananmen Square activists] have been gradually marginalized in Western society.”
26 Jun 11 | Asia and Pacific, China
When dissident artist Ai Weiwei was freed last Wednesday, his four associates were also nabbed back in April, were disturbingly absent.
Now it seems that those four — his driver, accountant, assistant and a designer — have also been released, according to both Ai’s sister and a volunteer working with the artist.
Zhang Jinsong, Hu Mingfen, Wen Tao and Liu Zhenggang were all released on bail Thursday and Friday of last week, the two said.
None of the four has as yet spoken to the media and confirmed their release.
Their freedom means one less pressure on Ai.
According to the terms of his bail, he is not allowed to talk about his case, the artist explained. He will also be unlikely to be using any of the tools of his former dissidence — his wit, his art, and Twitter — to needle the government.
No formal charges have been brought against Ai, but Chinese media says he has confessed to tax evasion.
A very good analysis of the Ai case in the context of the Chinese legal system is given by China legal expert Jerome A. Cohen in The Wall Street Journal.
His release, says Cohen, “represents a humiliating climbdown for Beijing… [and] nothing can conceal their profound embarrassment.”
Ai and his four friends may have been freed, but, as Amnesty International reminds us, at least 130 activists, lawyers, bloggers and low level “netizens” are still detained or missing in China.
23 Jun 11 | Asia and Pacific, China
After 81 days in detention, the detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has finally been allowed to go home. His mother Gao Ying didn’t sleep last night, and his sister Gao Ge told the Guardian that she is “very, very happy”.
While Ai is much skinnier, he has kept his trademark beard – which prisoners would normally have to shave – and his provocative way of talking. Upon Ai’s release (with bail), many media outlets were there waiting to welcome him.
Ai did not speak much in his interviews with the media. “We can sit here in silence together on the phone but we cannot speak a word,” Ai told the FT. His release is in exchange for a more conservative (and quieter) version of himself; it remains to be seen how far the freed Ai Weiwei will assert his right to freedom of expression.
The Western media stationed in Beijing have been quick to get quotes from Ai, but the Chinese media has kept silent except for the official media statement. An extract reads:
BEIJING, June 22 (Xinhua) — The Beijing police department said Wednesday that Ai Weiwei has been released on bail because of his good attitude in confessing his crimes as well as a chronic disease he suffers from. The decision comes also in consideration of the fact that Ai has repeatedly said he is willing to pay the taxes.
It is believed that “chronic illness” refers to diabetes. It’s also widely believed that Ai has “confessed” to crimes of tax evasion. Joshua Rosenzweig, of the human rights foundation Dui Hua, reports on his blog that the coercive measures against Ai have been changed from something called “residential surveillance” to what can only be covered by a Chinese term: qubao houshen.
Qubao houshen allows Ai to live at home and move around freely. However, he must ask permission if he wants to travel abroad. The good news is that qubao houshen is what the authorities sometimes do if they want to discreetly drop a case that is no longer going to be charged. Rosenzweig quotes Professor Jerome Cohen at the US-Asia Law Institute blog:
Qubao houshen (QBHS) is a technique that the public security authorities sometimes use as a face-saving device to end controversial cases that are unwise or unnecessary for them to prosecute. Often in such cases a compromise has been reached in negotiation with the suspect, as apparently it has been here. Of course, we will have to hear what Ai says upon release, recognizing that, as part of the agreement and as a consequence of long incommunicado detention, the released suspect is usually subdued in any public remarks made upon release …
So far, the news of Ai’s release has been welcomed by all sides and was followed by the release of his cousin, Zhang Jinsong, and driver, Hu Mingfen.
Nevertheless, Wen Tao, a freelancer who worked with Ai and Liu Zhenggang, his accountant, remain missing.
