A company China says is controlled by artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) was accused of massive tax evasion in the government’s clearest disclosure yet about its investigation of the activist detained for more than six weeks.
The investigation also found Beijing Fake Cultural Development had intentionally destroyed accounting documents, Xinhua news agency said on Friday, citing unidentified police investigators. The brief report gave no other details and did not quantify the “huge amount” of tax the company is accused of not paying.
Ai’s family and supporters have previously dismissed similar accusations, and his wife, Lu Qing (路青), says the company in question is registered and belongs to her, not him. The company handles the business aspects of his art career.
Ai is among China’s best-known artists internationally and helped design the iconic Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium. Famed for his groundbreaking art and irreverence toward authority, he was picked up at Beijing’s airport on April 3 and is being held under a form of detention known as residential surveillance somewhere outside Beijing.
His detention has prompted an international outcry and Western leaders have called it a sign of China’s deteriorating human rights. His family and supporters say he is being punished for speaking out about the communist leadership and social problems.
Hundreds of lawyers, activists and other intellectuals in China have disappeared or been questioned or detained by authorities since February, when online calls for protests similar to those in the Middle East and North Africa began to circulate.
Before he disappeared, Ai had been keeping an informal tally of the recent detentions on Twitter.
Ai has also spoken critically about a number of national scandals, including the deaths of students in shoddily built schools that collapsed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, children killed or sickened by tainted infant formula and a deadly high-rise fire in Shanghai that killed 58 people and was blamed on negligent workers and corrupt inspectors.
Ai’s studio home has been searched, with documents and computers seized, and his wife has been questioned by the tax bureau regarding Beijing Fake Cultural Development.
Lu was permitted to see Ai on Sunday last week for a brief, monitored meeting that was his first contact with the outside world in 43 days.
Tax evasion allegations against Ai were published last month by Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po newspaper, which said he was also being investigated for bigamy because he has a young son with a woman other than his wife and that he is suspected of spreading pornography online.
China’s Foreign Ministry said previously Ai is under investigation for economic crimes and has accused those complaining about his detention of trampling on China’s legal sovereignty.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
The US will help bolster the Philippines’ arsenal and step up joint military exercises, Manila’s defense chief said, as tensions between Washington and China escalate. The longtime US ally is expecting a sustained US$500 million in annual defense funding from Washington through 2029 to boost its military capabilities and deter China’s “aggression” in the region, Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro said in an interview in Manila on Thursday. “It is a no-brainer for anybody, because of the aggressive behavior of China,” Teodoro said on close military ties with the US under President Donald Trump. “The efforts for deterrence, for joint resilience
RSS