Ai Weiwei Questioned for “Attacking” a Security Camera

On January 15th, the outspoken Chinese artist Ai Weiwei posted on Twitter: "Last night I was summoned by Chaoyang police station, the reason for the summons was that I was suspected of attacking a security camera."

The post has caused an outpouring of jokes online. One netizen posted: "Was the camera badly injured? Did it have a checkup? Did they do a CT scan?"

Economist He Qinglian posted on her Twitter account: "This story is really amusing, 'attacking' normally refers to behavior against people. The camera is a thing, not a person. Only the Communist Party would raise the tools of the regime to the status of people. The 'mighty Party' has followed its desires to a ridiculous degree."

Ai Weiwei’s mother, Gao Ying, considers the incident as a joke.

[Gao Ying, Ai Weiwei’s Mother]:
"There are so many of these jokes, just treat it as a joke. [The police] summoned him, they had seen some people on the video throwing things at the camera."

Ai Weiwei was detained for 81 days in 2011 for alleged tax evasion. Many suspect the detention was to warn the outspoken artist not to be critical of the regime. Since Ai’s release, he has been under surveillance.

Ai isn’t the only one to have suffered this kind of intrusion into his life. After requesting an interview with Chinese leader Hu Jinato, Beijing-based independent filmmaker Yang Weidong has also found himself under video monitoring.

[Yang Weidong, Independent Filmmaker]:
"Thirteen surveillance cameras have been installed near the entrance to our home— from the entrance all the way to the main street, for about 800 meters. Now my living space has been diminished and I have no privacy. All of this happened after I requested an interview with Hu Jintao on October 30th."

Ai Weiwei is famous for his "Sunflower Seeds" exhibit at London’s Tate Modern gallery and his design of the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing.

But the artist’s work has often set him on a collision course with the Chinese regime. In December 2008, Ai Weiwei teamed up with fellow artist Tan Zuoran in an investigation into the deaths of school children in the Sichuan earthquake. Thousands of children died when schools collapsed due to alleged shoddy school construction.