Dennis Hollingsworth

FREE AI WEIWEI

Artist Ai Weiwei, a Chinese artist educated in New York, is still under arrest, whereabouts unknown:

The outspoken Ai, 53, was the artistic director for the ?Bird?s Nest? Olympic Stadium, but he later turned critical of the Games. He has been arrested before: In 2009, in the western city of Chengdu, Ai was beaten so badly that he required surgery to have blood drained from his brain. Late last year, he was stopped at Beijing?s airport from flying to South Korea because authorities feared he might go to Oslo to attend the Nobel ceremony for Liu. Liu is in prison, and his wife, Liu Xia, is under house arrest.

?THERE are some sour and smelly literati these days who are utterly abominable,? a retired military officer reportedly told a recent gathering in Beijing. ?They attack Chairman Mao and practise de-Maoification. We must fight to repel this reactionary counter-current.? At the time, two months ago, the colonel?s crusty words might have had the whiff of a bygone era. Today, amid a heavy crackdown on dissent, they sound cruelly prescient.

One of the most prominent literati, Ai Weiwei, is among dozens of activists the security forces have rounded up recently. Mr Ai, an artist who is famous abroad, was detained in Beijing as he attempted to board a flight to Hong Kong on April 3rd. There has been no official confirmation since of his whereabouts. Officials say that he is being investigated for unspecified economic crimes, but the Global Times, a Beijing newspaper, warned that Mr Ai had been skirting close to the ?red line? of the law with his ?maverick? behaviour. In other words, he had apparently provoked the Communist Party once too often.