ChinaGeeks translates a post from Ai Weiwei’s blog by a volunteer in his Numbers project about his encounter with local police while researching the Sichuan earthquake:
Originally, I didn’t want to call, I was just going to walk over there, but the number signs on the street were gone, so I had to make the call instead. I said I’d be at the wharf, and then went there, asking directions along the way. I waited there for a half an hour. Perhaps it was this half hour that gave the police the time to burst out run hurriedly over before the person I was waiting for showed up.
The one in front was a commander, and when he said he’d seen me before I guessed he had seen me during Tan Zuoren’s case. He was experienced; he showed me as badge as soon as he was in front of me. The dialogue [between us] was as boring as always, both sides just beating around the bush. He asked where was I from, what was I doing in Qingchuan, and used the 60th anniversary-mandated “checks” on outsiders and the concept of safeguarding river crab society [i.e., harmonious society] as excuses to arrest me.
First we went to the Muyu police substation, where I calmly and somewhat honestly wrote a record. Now, it looks like I was thinking about things too simply. I thought when I got out of the Muyu [station] I could just leave but they took me to the Qingchuan county station. It seems like they thought I was important.
ChinaGeeks also posts photos of Ai Weiwei’s brain, which was recently operated on to repair a subdural hematoma he received while being beaten by police in Chongqing.
