Erro erro erro

The Weiwei soap opera continues with more plots than Highgate Cemetery. He has now been refused permission to attend his own tax hearing. He is, of course, contesting the imposition of a fine made by the Chinese Government for alleged tax evasion and other financial exoticisms. In his turn Weiwei has issued a writ against the state for violating the rights of witnesses and of evidence, and of preventing him consulting his own accounts in order to prepare properly his defence.

To mock those limiting his movements and spying on him 24 hours a day he donned a police uniform – several sizes too large for his trim six pack – and posed for foreign news correspondents. Freedom from last year’s incarceration appears to have emboldened him. But one of his legal team has already ‘disappeared’. We fear he won’t be laughing when he starts a life sentence of mopping lavatories in Mongolia.

David Lee

The Jackdaw, July 2012