Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Ai Weiwei Talks, Ran Yunfei Walks

Almost half a year ago, during a wave of crackdown in China, many prominent dissidents were detained and/or arrested, some were charged with subversion. Among them were free lancer Ran Yunfei and famous artist Ai Weiwei.

Ai Weiwei's arrest in April caught world-wide attention and outrage. He was then released in June with parole conditions including no media interviews or participating in social media. He had kept his public silence, until now. This week, he showed up unexpected on Twitter, expressing concerns of his colleagues who were detained because of connections to him.

Even more strangely, he is now interviewed by the official newspaper Global Times. The paper describes him as "feisty" and quoted him saying "Of course you might live an easier life if you abandon some rights. But there are so many injustices, and limited educational resources. They all diminish happiness. I will never stop fighting injustice."

The interview was published in the English language edition of the paper. There was no mention in the Chinese language edition.


Meanwhile, it has been reported that Ran Yunfei, who was detained in February, had just been released from prison. So far he had made no public statements.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2011/08/ai-weiwei-we-to-want-to-shame-you.html