News re Ai Weiwei and his followers’ mass nudity protest

* Nov 29, Guardian, “Chinese police question Ai Weiwei’s wife – Lu Qing released after three hours of questioning, according to the artist and activist”

* Nov 29, Telegraph, “Chinese police question Ai Weiwei’s wife – The wife of Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist and dissident, was taken in for almost three hours of questioning by police in Beijing on Tuesday and warned her not to leave the city.”

* Nov 26, Guardian, “Ai Weiwei: ‘Every day I think, this will be the day I get taken in again…’The more he is harassed by his government, the more Ai Weiwei becomes a symbol of activism in China. But how much longer can he continue to speak out?”

* Nov 26, Taipei Times, “Ma defends Chinese artist Ai Weiwei”

“President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday called for China to respect human rights and defended Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei’s (艾未未) right to freedom of expression as he attended an exhibition of Ai’s work at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.”

* Nov 25, Seattle PI “Taiwan leader calls for artistic freedom in China”

“The distance between Taiwan and China will be determined by their views on human rights protection,” Ma [Taiwan President] said. “When our views get closer, the two sides will move closer.”

* Nov 23, Media Bistro, “Ai Weiwei’s Assistant Investigated for Pornography, Internet Supporters Go Nude (or Nearly) in Show of Solidarity”

* Nov 22, MSNBC, “Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei answers reader questions”

Q: How did you react to the love shown by your supporters who raised money to help you with your legal issues with the government? Were you at all surprise, and how did those who oppose you respond to this kind of support?

Ai Weiwei: I was deeply impressed, firstly surprised by the reaction of the people who openly support me, who was accused by the state with tax fault. This never happened in a nation like china where the authority is the law. And people really can express their feeling against the accusations. With my unique condition, because I have been working with internet for the past few years, and created a space where the oldest power structure seems much less powerful. So people used the money as a voting ticket to express their feelings against authorities, which was trying to manipulate judicial system, and to punish someone who have different opinions, or even a simple expression which reflects certain kind of freedom. In less than 10 days with restriction that my name can not even be recognized on Chinese internet, we got support over 9 million yuan(about 1.4 million dollars), and that not only came as a surprise to me, but a surprise o the whole society and the authorities as well. That would become a symbolic event which really announced a kind of people’s power from Internet.

[…]

Q: I didn’t think you were allowed to talk to the press after being released from prison, what’s changed?

Ai Weiwei: I’m not talking to press. I’m talking to people.

[…]

Q: Do you believe that you can beat the tax evasion charges?

Ai Weiwei: In current conditions I don’t think we can change the outcome of tax evasion investigation because we don’t have independent judicial system. We don’t even have independent tax department. Chinese media, tax bureau, and the court, they are all under one party’s control. There’s no miracle about it. But at the same time, we already won the trial outside the trial. People openly discuss it and support me. It’s already a victory. It will also be a reminder to the powers that they should never use justice as a means for revenge, otherwise that would really hurt themselves, and put the nation in a shadow when there’s no trust in justice.

* Nov 22, MSNBC, “The story behind the chat with Ai Weiwei”

* Nov 22, WaPo, “Ai Weiwei rallies his followers in protests”

* Nov 21, 2011 Guardian, “Ai Weiwei supporters strip off as artist faces ‘porn’ investigation”

* Nov 21, Telegraph, “Ai Weiwei’s followers’ mass nudity protest” (uncensored nude photo)

* Nov 21, HuffPost, “Ai Weiwei Supporters Tweet Naked Photos”

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WARNING THIS SITE CONTAINS FULL FRONTAL NUDE IMAGES:

“艾未粉果 Ai Wei Fans’ Nudity – Listen Chinese Government: Nudity is NOT Pornography“

I like this one “@yanglicai: 同光同罪”. In rough English translation, “if nudity is breaking the law, I am breaking the same law, sentence me the same way”)