If, as the brutal Chinese police claim, the artist Ai Weiwei is beginning to “confess” to alleged crimes, one can only imagine the horrors he is suffering at the hands of Beijing’s notorious secret police.
A Hong Kong newspaper under Beijing control claims that it has “firm evidence” of Ai’s tax avoidance and other “crimes”, including bigamy! You couldn’t make it up – except the Chinese authorities undoubtedly are. All Ai is "guilty" of is being opposed to the authoritarian regime.
Ai's sister Gao Ge described the bigamy accusation as "absurd", while his wife Lu Qing dismissed the allegations as an attempt to smear his reputation. Ai, 53, is the most internationally prominent of Chinese dissidents, rights lawyers, activists and grassroots agitators detained or held in secret since February. After the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, fear of contagion from Middle East uprisings triggered a crackdown.
As an artist, Ai has won great praise and a global reputation, partly through his contribution to the design of the “bird’s nest”, Beijing’s beautiful Olympic stadium. But even that could not save him from arrest, as a frequent critic of the government through his art, blogs, and Twitter messages.
As well as writing, and creating works like his sunflower seeds installation at Tate Modern, Ai investigated and exposed government corruption in construction of schools in Sichuan that collapsed during the 2008 earthquake. Others who complained were put on trial for their troubles.
Ai was detained at Beijing International Airport on April 3 while preparing to board a flight to Hong Kong. Later that day police raided his home and studio, questioned his wife and eight assistants, and confiscated computers. According to the international artists’ defence organisation PEN, Ai’s whereabouts remain unknown and there are mounting concerns for his welfare. PEN has launched an online petition calling for his release.
Corporate-led governments and the corrupt International Olympic Committee claimed that giving China the Olympics would help encourage reform, greater freedom and respect for human rights. Naturally, the exact opposite has happened. In a recent interview, Larry Siems, who directs the Freedom to Write programme at the PEN American Centre in New York, said that since the Games there has been wave after wave of arrests, including that of writer Liu Xiaobo who was awarded this year’s Nobel Prize for literature. He remarked:
In December ‘08 a group of writers and intellectuals, and artists and a number of people from all walks of life, published a petition calling for greater human rights and democratic freedoms in China that resulted in a number of arrests. That brought a new wave of repressions and a kind of a stunning response from the Chinese government on the international stage where they issued warnings to other countries for example not to attend the Nobel ceremony. And then, early this year, since the wave of protest movements and ‘Jasmine revolutions’ so called, in North Africa and the Middle East, I think a real concern over the possibility of such a movement in China has really produced this most severe crackdown that we’ve seen in years.
Siems highlighted the case of writer Liao E. Woo. Liao, who due to attend a festival this month in New York. A fortnight ago the authorities told him he would not be allowed to leave and have tried to force him to sign a document promising to stop publishing abroad.
The Chinese authorities rightly live in fear of a social explosion against a corrupt, bureaucratic Stalinist regime whose policy of “get rich quick” at any price has been applauded in the West. Corporations and governments are now pressing for China to grant open access to markets to ease the impact of the global recession so they are silent about Ai and other detainees. In any case they surmise, why are all these artists fired up about freedom, exploitation, censorship and environmental disaster? Don’t they know that the only business of the planet is business itself?
Penny Cole
Read more about what is happening to artists and writers in China.
For revolutionary solutions to create a sustainable, not-for-profit economy in place of global capital alongside a real democracy based on People’s Assemblies. Visit our web site at www.aworldtowin.net
Showing posts with label Sichuan earthquake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sichuan earthquake. Show all posts
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
China cracks down as turmoil grows
Signs of growing social tensions in China continue to mount, revealed by the jailing of an activist for documenting shoddy construction work to a decision in one province to assuage workers’ growing anger with a 13% pay rise.
Tan Zuoren has been jailed for five years for “subversion”, according to his lawyer this week. Ostensibly, the sentence was for emailed comments denouncing the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989. But as no one has gone to prison for such an “offence” for over a decade, the state’s motives lay elsewhere.
And you don’t have to look too hard. Tan’s removal from the scene coincided with his plans to publish a report on the collapse of school buildings during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, in which more than 80,000 people died. Parents were angered by the fact that relatively new school buildings collapsed like a pack of cards and staged anti-government rallies in protest.
Tan’s trial in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, was adjourned without a verdict in August last year. His lawyers said that they were unable to present their defence or call witnesses to testify on his behalf. Remember Beijing’s “bird nest” stadium? Well, its internationally acclaimed designer Ai Weiwei came to testify about the poor construction of school buildings – and was promptly beaten up and detained. He underwent emergency brain surgery in Germany.
“I think this is a very important case for China, more important than that of Liu Xiaobo,” said Ai, referring to a Chinese dissident jailed in December for 11 years for online essays calling for civil rights and multi-party elections. It shows the Chinese legal system has taken a big step backwards. Tan’s ‘crime’ was entirely one of speech, of conscience.”
Ai remains a prominent target. Two of his Google e-mail accounts have been hacked into and state security agents have rifled through his bank accounts. The designer, who has lived in America, has also been told he could be deported if he doesn’t stop his criticism of human rights abuses.
The authorities’ extreme nervousness comes as China’s attempt to sustain its export-based economy stumbles. Inflation is rising following a massive stimulus programme while the major importers of its products in Europe, North America and Australia continue in recession with plummeting consumer demand.
Eastern Jiangsu province, which exports more than Brazil and South Africa combined, raised its monthly minimum wage rate 13% from about £80 a month to Rmb960 (£90) last week. Other provincial authorities are expected to follow suit. The settlements reflect not just a shortage of labour – many of the 20 million sacked last year have stayed in the countryside – but increasing militancy by workers who still earn a pittance. Nevertheless, manufacturers are certain to pass on wage increases in prices which will further dampen export prospects.
Meanwhile, intense security remains in force in Xinjiang and Tibet. Controls on the internet have been tightened in the past few months. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been blocked. By all accounts, their role in Iran’s recent upheaval spooked China’s leaders.
The 74-million strong Communist Party which has overseen the turn to a capitalist economy, is dominated by those who joined to get a job or get on in the state machine. It only just survived Tiananmen intact. Since then, inequality and corruption has grown at an unstoppable pace. The collapse of the school buildings in Sichuan was undoubtedly the result of “skimming” by local authorities. How long the party itself can withstand the underlying social turmoil in China is no longer an academic question.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Tan Zuoren has been jailed for five years for “subversion”, according to his lawyer this week. Ostensibly, the sentence was for emailed comments denouncing the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989. But as no one has gone to prison for such an “offence” for over a decade, the state’s motives lay elsewhere.
And you don’t have to look too hard. Tan’s removal from the scene coincided with his plans to publish a report on the collapse of school buildings during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, in which more than 80,000 people died. Parents were angered by the fact that relatively new school buildings collapsed like a pack of cards and staged anti-government rallies in protest.
Tan’s trial in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, was adjourned without a verdict in August last year. His lawyers said that they were unable to present their defence or call witnesses to testify on his behalf. Remember Beijing’s “bird nest” stadium? Well, its internationally acclaimed designer Ai Weiwei came to testify about the poor construction of school buildings – and was promptly beaten up and detained. He underwent emergency brain surgery in Germany.
“I think this is a very important case for China, more important than that of Liu Xiaobo,” said Ai, referring to a Chinese dissident jailed in December for 11 years for online essays calling for civil rights and multi-party elections. It shows the Chinese legal system has taken a big step backwards. Tan’s ‘crime’ was entirely one of speech, of conscience.”
Ai remains a prominent target. Two of his Google e-mail accounts have been hacked into and state security agents have rifled through his bank accounts. The designer, who has lived in America, has also been told he could be deported if he doesn’t stop his criticism of human rights abuses.
The authorities’ extreme nervousness comes as China’s attempt to sustain its export-based economy stumbles. Inflation is rising following a massive stimulus programme while the major importers of its products in Europe, North America and Australia continue in recession with plummeting consumer demand.
Eastern Jiangsu province, which exports more than Brazil and South Africa combined, raised its monthly minimum wage rate 13% from about £80 a month to Rmb960 (£90) last week. Other provincial authorities are expected to follow suit. The settlements reflect not just a shortage of labour – many of the 20 million sacked last year have stayed in the countryside – but increasing militancy by workers who still earn a pittance. Nevertheless, manufacturers are certain to pass on wage increases in prices which will further dampen export prospects.
Meanwhile, intense security remains in force in Xinjiang and Tibet. Controls on the internet have been tightened in the past few months. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been blocked. By all accounts, their role in Iran’s recent upheaval spooked China’s leaders.
The 74-million strong Communist Party which has overseen the turn to a capitalist economy, is dominated by those who joined to get a job or get on in the state machine. It only just survived Tiananmen intact. Since then, inequality and corruption has grown at an unstoppable pace. The collapse of the school buildings in Sichuan was undoubtedly the result of “skimming” by local authorities. How long the party itself can withstand the underlying social turmoil in China is no longer an academic question.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)