Main photo taken from the blog of Ai Weiwei (blog.aiweiwei.com /)
Since his arrest Sunday morning in broad daylight, at the international airport in Beijing, Ai Weiwei has given more news. This internationally renowned artist, troublemaker Chinese policy was to go to Hong Kong and Taiwan to discuss the organization of an exhibition. His wife was interviewed Sunday night by local police and then released, but said he could not collect any information about her husband. The eight assistants from studios headed by Ai Weiwei, the district Caochangdi, north-west of Beijing, were also released on Monday afternoon, reports the website on Ai Weiwei.The studio has been excavated and is still under police surveillance, several computers and hard disks were confiscated, and Internet access was cut in the neighborhood.
The absence of new Ai Weiwei, more than a day after his arrest, is not a good sign. The Wall Street Journal points out that Chinese law provides that the relatives of a detainee must be alerted within 24 hours. Neither his lawyer nor his wife could not contact him.
"The time of open dissent is over"
Concern about the fate of Ai Weiwei is all the greater because it follows "the arrest of dozens of people in recent months," the statement from Amnesty International.The authorities have reacted to the appearance on the Internet encouraging messages at rallies in China regularly on Sunday to protest against inflation, corruption and the gap between rich and poor.
By these waves of arrests, the Chinese government wants to "send the message that the time of open dissent is over," understands the organization of human rights based in London."If the Chinese authorities have the audacity to question a world-renowned artist in broad daylight at the Beijing airport, one can only worry at the thought of how treaties are likely to be other dissidents least known, "says the NGO.
"What I find most disturbing is the fact that these activists have" disappeared "and that the government refuses to take responsibility for their detention. It has been almost over a month they are unreachable.There is serious risk of torture and abuse ", reports the China specialist at Human Rights Watch based in Hong Kong, Nicholas Bequelin, interviewed by Le Monde.
Very popular on the blogosphere
The arrest of Ai Weiwei is an important step in this "wave of repression, the largest since more than ten years," said Agnes Gaudu, head of the section China, Singapore and Taiwan International Mail. "For the first time since the criminal detention of twenty people - activists, lawyers, activists, bloggers, known to a limited circle - someone who is extremely popular in China has been arrested," decrypt- she said.Ai Weiwei had made known to the general public during his survey of public buildings that collapsed during the earthquake in Sichuan province in 2008. "It also has built a solid reputation for his impertinence and his political jokes," recalls Agnes Gaudu.
His subversive photos on Tiananmen Square have been around the Chinese web, and his blog on the consumer website Sina.com has been a big success, before being censored two years ago. So much so that he had been elected by Chinese netizens "Artist of the Year" in a poll conducted by Sina.com earlier this year. The website had finally had to back off and hold a new vote.Ai Weiwei's works are currently exhibited at the Tate Modern Gallery in London. They should have been the subject of a first major exhibition in Beijing, before the Belgian gallery UCCA will withdraw in February.
