Police charge Ai Weiwei with porn, fans strip in support

Beijing: Ai Weiwei fans have again rallied behind the outspoken Chinese artist after he revealed he is being investigated on pornography charges — by posting naked pictures of themselves online. Supporters of Ai — who disappeared into custody for 81 days earlier this year — this month donated nearly nine million yuan ($ 1.4 million) to the artist after he was handed a huge bill for alleged back taxes. Now, his fans are taking a different tack to counter a police investigation into photos of the 54-year-old in which he and a group of women pose nude, sitting on traditional wooden chairs in the middle of a bare white room. Dozens of supporters have posted naked or part-naked photos of themselves on a blog page titled “Ai Wei Fans’ Nudity — Listen, Chinese government: Nudity is not Pornography”. Some of them are full-frontal and revealing. Others are more discreet, with the Chinese character for “love”, pronounced the same as “Ai”, pictures of the artist or the logo of state television CCTV placed across their private parts. One man poses as sculptor Auguste Rodin’s famous “Thinker” statue, one emulates Michelangelo’s “David”, and yet another is sitting naked on a toilet, reading what looks like an iPad. Ai, an artist of international renown whose vocal rights activism has irked the Chinese government, was taken into secret police detention in April and released in June. He denies the charge of tax evasion, calling it politically motivated, and on Friday told AFP that authorities had accused him before of producing pornography. “When they detained me, they said ’this is pornography’, but I just laughed, I said, ‘do you know what is pornography?’” he said. “Nudity is not pornography.” [caption id=“attachment_138041” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, right, shows his tax guarantee slips, next to his company lawyer Du Yanlin as they leave the the Beijing Local Taxation Bureau, China. AP”]  [/caption] He said he had not taken the charge seriously until his assistant was pulled in for questioning last week about his pictures. “This is completely ridiculous. Our nation today is so corrupt, with so much sex, but they think nudity photos on the Internet is pornography,” he said. Ai’s problems with the authorities started when he began investigating the collapse of schools in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and a 2010 fire at a Shanghai high-rise that killed dozens. But until his detention he had been left relatively unscathed thanks to his family background. His father is the late Ai Qing, a famous poet who was disgraced and later rehabilitated by the Communist regime. His prolific use of the Internet and social media — his Twitter account has more than 113,000 followers and he has tweeted 61,135 times — has also played to his advantage. AFP Police called in videographer Zhao Zhao, one of Ai’s assistants, for questioning on Thursday, Ai told The Associated Press by phone. Zhao said police asked him about an artistic photo he took last year of Ai and four women, who were all nude, titled One Tiger, Eight Breasts. The investigation appears to revive an accusation leveled against Ai when he was detained in April. Reports then said Ai was being investigated for tax evasion, bigamy and for spreading pornography online. Ai questioned whether the police understood art and culture. “If they see nudity as pornography, then China is still in the Qing dynasty,” he said. Beijing’s public security bureau did not immediately respond to questions faxed to them. Zhao said police told him they might seek criminal penalties against him for the photograph if it had spread widely. “They said, ‘This photograph is an obscene photograph.’ I said, ‘I didn’t know that, what’s obscene about it?’ They said, ‘It’s just obscene.’ They’ve already decided that,” Zhao said. No charges have been pressed yet, he added. Zhao said the investigation at this point appeared to be limited to himself, but that he believed it was part of the authorities’ ongoing campaign against Ai. “To them so far their efforts have had no effect, such as the tax case, so they are trying this from other angles,” he said. “They are again raising this issue, and will keep repeating this over again. They won’t easily let him off.” Agencies