A prominent Chinese artist and outspoken government critic has been stopped from boarding a flight in Beijing.
Ai Weiwei was escorted from customs at the city’s Capital International airport this morning as he attempted to take a flight to Hong Kong. An assistant of the artist also claims his studio was also raided by police.
A tweet, said to be from an unnamed assistant, said: “Ai Weiwei was detained by two customs officers while crossing customs in Beijing Capital Airport. Ai Weiwei's phone has been shut off, and he's already been out of contact for 50 minutes. The situation is unclear. Please everyone pay attention.”
It is unclear whether Ai, 53, has been detained or why he was barred from taking the flight, but he has been stopped from travelling abroad before.
In November he was prevented from flying to Seoul, shortly after he had been invited to attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Norway honouring dissident and writer Liu Xiaobo, who is currently serving an 11-year sentence for subversion.
Advertisement
Ai, the son of one of China’s most famous modern poets, claimed that police had blocked him at the boarding gate and showed him a handwritten note that said he could cause damage to national security by leaving.
In a subsequent message this morning the assistant named several members of the artist’s staff who are understood to have been taken in for questioning after a search of Ai’s studio in Beijing.
The tweet read: “One hour ago a bunch of police came to Ai Weiwei…with a search warrant and 8 staff members were taken away to Beijing Chaoyang District Nangao police station for questioning.
“There are now police in front of the studio and no one is allowed to enter. Ai Weiwei was detained at Beijing Capital Airport 3 hours ago and [we] have been unable to contact him.”
Ai has been using his Twitter page, which has more than 70,000 followers, to document the arrest and detention of activists by the authorities. Those who oppose the government have been using the internet to drum up support for protests similar to those scene in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and the Middle East since the turn of the year.
Advertisement
Some of Ai’s work has been on display at London’s Tate Modern since October. The floor of the vast turbine hall at the gallery has been carpeted with millions of individually-sculpted porcelain sunflower seeds. He was also a consultant on the Bird’s Nest stadium which was the focal point of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Alison Klayman, an American filmmaker who has been working on a documentary about Ai for more than two years, said Beijing police had visited Ai's studio three times in the past week, checking the passports and identification of Chinese and foreign assistants working there and some visiting architecture students from Europe.
"The focus seemed to be on the fact that he had foreign employees," Klayman said by telephone from New York.