{"id":185384,"date":"2015-07-22T15:54:18","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T22:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=185384"},"modified":"2015-07-22T15:54:18","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T22:54:18","slug":"authorities-return-ai-weiweis-passport-after-four-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2015\/07\/authorities-return-ai-weiweis-passport-after-four-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Authorities Return Ai Weiwei’s Passport After Four Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>, Ai Weiwei\u00a0today announced that authorities\u00a0had finally returned his passport. The outspoken artist has been forbidden from overseas travel for over four years, since he was detained at the Beijing airport<\/a> while attempting to fly to Hong Kong in April 2011, and subsequently detained for 81 days<\/a>. The Guardian’s Tom Phillips reports on Ai’s initial reaction, and a mixture of celebration\u00a0and realism from\u00a0his supporters<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got it back I felt my heart was at peace,\u201d the artist told the Guardian on Wednesday afternoon, just hours after police handed him back the travel document and informed him he was free to go overseas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel pleased. This was something that needed to be done,\u201d added Ai, who has long been a vocal critic of China\u2019s leaders. \u201cI was quite frustrated when my right to travel was taken away but now I feel much more positive about my condition.<\/p>\n

[…]\u00a0Ai said his first trip would be to Germany, where his six-year-old son has been living since last year.<\/p>\n

[…]\u00a0Fans, friends and relatives of the Chinese artist celebrated Ai\u2019s freedom on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

[…]\u00a0Others reacted more cautiously. \u201cCongratulations Mr Ai Weiwei on getting your passport back. But having a passport doesn\u2019t mean you can get out of China freely,\u201d Liu Xiaoyuan, a prominent human rights lawyer, wrote on Twitter. […] [Source<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The New York Times’ Austin Ramzy reports further on Ai’s 2011 detention, the activism that attracted official\u00a0attention, and on the artist’s\u00a0reaction to his travel restrictions<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Mr. Ai, who was a design consultant on the Bird\u2019s Nest stadium<\/a> in Beijing and exhibited his sculptural installation \u201cSunflower Seeds<\/a>\u201d at the Tate Modern in London, was detained in 2011 while trying to fly to Hong Kong from Beijing. He was held and interrogated for 81 days<\/a> and later prosecuted on a charge of tax evasion. A court ruled against him and said his studio owed $2.4 million in penalties and back taxes.<\/p>\n

He has said the case against him was retaliation for his political activism, including his memorializing the thousands of children who died in schools that collapsed during a 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province.<\/p>\n

[…]\u00a0Mr. Ai also turned his years without a passport into an art project, filling the basket of his bicycle, which was locked outside his studio in the Caochangdi district of Beijing, with flowers each morning<\/a>. He posted the photographs online, and then reposted images of flowers that supporters had directed to him. He noted that Wednesday was his\u00a0600th day of placing flowers<\/a> since he began the project in 2013. [Source<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p>\n