KERENZA EVANS WITNESSES 'THE ARREST OF AI WEIWEI'
The Chinese Artist Ai WeiWei has become a universal figure – both for his controversial, political art and for the shocking circumstances surrounding his arrest at the hands of the Chinese government. On April 3 2011, as he was boarding a flight to Taipei, WeiWei was arrested and escorted away by officials, with the sole justification that ‘his travel could damage state security’. His arrest lasted 81 days and upon release, he was simply told that his imprisonment had related to ‘tax evasion’; a convenient façade for a battle over artistic freedom.