Ai Weiwei, internationally famous for his art, his politics, and his politically-tinged art, has been released. The most common reaction definitely seems to be surprise. The following is a round-up of reactions from different sources.
Ai’s release after nearly three months’ detention was not directly confirmed by him or his immediate family on Wednesday. However, Al Jazeera’s Andrew Thomas, reporting from Beijing, was able to reach Ai and verify the news first-hand.
“He has confirmed that he has been freed – he’s at home,” our correspondent said.
Ai “said that he couldn’t tell us anything at all except that he can’t tell us anything”.
Ai did say, however, that he had lost “a lot of weight” while in detention, our correspondent said.
Reacting to the news of the artist’s release, Catherine Barber, deputy director of the UK-based Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific programme, told Al Jazeera it “certainly looks like Ai Weiwei is under continuing restrictions” of some kind.
“All the activists released recently have been restricted, and some indeed kept in illegal house arrest after their release,” she said.
Maybe global outrage really can work, at least in high-profile cases like this. To me, this biting of the bullet makes China look better, at least a little bit, than if they’d kept Ai Weiwei hidden away under lock and key. It is less humiliating for China than appearing weak and terrified by an activist artist.
The release of Ai Weiwei is an astonishment. Nobody—least of all, it’s safe to say, the leaders who signed off on his arrest two and a half months ago—predicted the scene of him waving wearily to a crush of reporters as he returned to his studio on a hot Beijing night, apologizing for being unable to comment further. He looked tired and small, but visibly unharmed. In Chinese judicial terms, his release on bail of a certain kind is “perhaps the very best outcome that could have been expected in the circumstances of this difficult case,” according to Jerry Cohen, the dean of Chinese law specialists.
Short of a sharp turn, Ai is unlikely to face further detention in this case, but he is hardly out of the woods. The first question will be what kind of life he returns to, whether he will be able to speak freely and travel abroad, and how much punishment still awaits him on charges of tax evasion.
It should be noted that the tax evasion charges are almost certainly invented, an excuse to justify an arrest that was illegal by the letter of Chinese law. Anyway, for the first time since starting this site, I have to say: good choice, Beijing! It shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and there are still many more people waiting to be released, but at least today we can count one less person sitting in a Chinese prison cell for no good reason. I’m sure we’ll have more as the story develops.
The China Hotline 