Archive for May, 2011
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
An Azerbaijani court sentenced opposition activist
Bakhtiyar Hajiyev to two years’ imprisonment yesterday, 18 May. Hajiyev used Facebook to generate support for the 11 March “Great People’s Day” anti-government protests, but was sentenced on a charge of evading military service. The charge was brought against him in January. As with
Eynulla Fatullayev and
Jabbar Savalan, Hajiev has been sentenced on charges unrelated to his activism, a tactic that increasingly used by the Azerbaijani authorities. On 14 May, Azerbaijan won the Eurovision Song Contest in Dusseldorf, prompting free speech campaigners to launch
fresh criticism on the government’s treatment of critical voices. Hajiyev was arrested prior to the demonstration, on 4 March, and held in pre-trial detention. On 12 May, the
European Parliament criticised the crackdown on opposition protests in Azerbaijan and expressed “deep concern” at the increased number of attacks on journalists and civil society activists using social networks to bring attention to their campaigns. European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek is scheduled to begin a visit to Azerbaijan on 20 May. Hajiyev’s lawyer said he was planning to appeal the verdict.
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Thursday, May 19th, 2011
An Azerbaijani court sentenced opposition activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev to two years’ imprisonment yesterday, 18 May.
Hajiyev used Facebook to generate support for the 11 March “Great People’s Day” anti-government protests, but was sentenced on a charge of evading military service. The charge was brought against him in January.As with Eynulla Fatullayev and Jabbar Savalan, Hajiev has been sentenced on charges unrelated to his activism, a tactic increasingly used by the Azerbaijani authorities.
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Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
A panel discussion to coincide with the installation of Ai Weiwei’s Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads at Somerset House
Monday 23rd May 17
Portico Rooms, Somerset House
19.00-20.30
Padraig Reidy, Index on Censorship’s News Editor, will join a panel comprising Dr Anne Alexander of Cambridge University, Dr Joss Hands, author of @ is for Activism and Sunny Hundal, Editor of Liberal Conspiracy blog, to debate the wider impact of the internet and social media in particular on the practice of 21st century politics and the nature of protest movements.
The upheavals sweeping the Arab world have been hailed by some as the Twitter revolutions. But just how influential a role has social media really played in the fall of dictatorships?
Buy tickets here.
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
Russian rock journalist Art Troitsky’s caustic tongue has landed him in court in four separate libel cases. Emily Butselaar reports
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Monday, May 16th, 2011
Journalist Irina Khalip has been given a two-year suspended sentence for participation in “mass disturbance” after December’s disputed Belarusian presidential elections.
Novaya Gazeta correspondent Khalip, 43, is married to presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, who was sentenced to five years in a labour camp on Saturday (14 May). The couple have a four-year-old son, Danil.
Saturday, May 14th, 2011
Leading Belarusian opposition politician Andrei Sannikov has been sentenced to five years hard labour for “organising mass disturbance”. Sannikov, the leader of European Belarus, was detained after protests against the disputed re-election of Alexander Lukashenko on 19 December last year. The trial of Sannikov’s wife Irina Khalip, a journalist with Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, began last week.
The 57-year-old former diplomat was reported to have said “take care of my family” as he was led from the court. Attempts have been made to take Sannikov and Khalip’s young son, Danil, into state custody.
In an earlier statement in court, Sannikov claimed he had been tortured while held in the Belarusian KGB’s notorious “Amerikanka” detention centre.
Four other opposition activists were sentenced today for taking part in “mass disturbances”: Oleg Gnedchik was sentenced to three-and-a-half years, while Fedor Mirzayanav, Vladimir Yaromenak and Ilya Vaselevich each received sentences of three years.
Mike Harris, Public Affairs Manager of Index on Censorship said: “The imprisonment and torture of presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov is Europe’s shame. Belarus is degenerating to its Soviet past, Sannikov was jailed simply for attending an opposition rally. His wife is also on trial for attending this protest and the government attempted to take his three- year-old son into care.”
He added: “Europe must use all tools at its disposal including stopping Western banks and the IMF financing the regime. Putting presidential candidates in jail in Europe in 2011 is not acceptable.”
In his final speech before the verdict former presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov said: “I love my family more than life. I love Belarus. I love freedom very much. I know that my family and all the people of Belarus will be happy when we become free, but this is impossible without law and order.”
Read Andrei Sannikov’s full statement to the court here.
Friday, May 13th, 2011
Artist Ai Weiwei has been missing for 40 days, Leah Borromeo reports from the opening of his new show
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was detained on 03 April 2011 by the authorities at Beijing Capital Airport preparing to board a scheduled flight to Hong Kong. He has yet to be charged and the state has not yet confirmed his whereabouts.
A major survey show of his work has opened at London’s Lisson Gallery joining his first public installation at Somerset House — “Circle of Animals”. As one of the leading cultural figures of his generation, Ai is a political artist in work and in deed. With work that juxtaposes the antiquity and craft of Chinese culture with modern techniques and multimedia platforms, his work has a voice that resonates through histories.
From a junkyard assemblage of domestic doors made from pristine slabs of marble to Han Dynasty vases covered in bold industrial paint to a marble CCTV camera pointed into the streets of London, the Lisson’s compilation of Weiwei’s work from the past six years shows the activism in his art and the artistry in his activism.
Wheatpasted on the walls outside the gallery are words from Ai himself:
“Liberty is about our rights to question everything.”
“Say what you need to say plainly and take responsibility for it.”
“Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo and to seek new potential.”
“Words can be deleted, but the facts won’t be deleted with them.”
The Lisson’s founder and director Nicholas Logsdail argues that Weiwei’s work “has become politicised because of his position. The genius lies in politically gentle forms that are open to interpretation — only when you look into what constitutes the work can you see he’s rebaptised antiquity with a message.”
In the days of the Young British Artists, established galleries like the Lisson and larger institutions like Tate and the Guggenheim were depoliticised. Should political art be shown it was obfuscated beneath layers of visual rhetoric or in historical retrospectives where the immediacy of the message passed its dateline. Thanks to Ai Weiwei and his disappearance at the hands of his own state, an art world already politicised by funding cuts is speaking out. We’ve all become agit-prop. Tate Modern stencilled “Free Ai Weiwei” across the top of its building. Anish Kapoor dedicated his Leviathan sculpture in Paris to Ai Weiwei. Bob and Roberta Smith held a reading of names to remind people that dozens of other artists, writers, and supporters of free expression have either been detained or gone missing at the hands of the Chinese. The Guggenheim has launched an online petition for his release and the Lisson is inviting all visitors to its show to be photographed with a “Free Ai Weiwei” placard that will be broadcast on the internet. There is no scope to be subtle when freedom is at stake.
Greg Hilty, the Lisson’s curatorial director, said that after Weiwei’s disappearance there was “no question” of whether to continue with the show. “Ai Weiwei consistently places himself at great risk for his art. We are showing that his art and activism goes beyond China. He’s an example for social criticism and free expression around the world. To Weiwei, there are no sacred cows.”
Logsdail says: “If you don’t support Ai Weiwei, you’re mental. Freedom to express yourself is what it means to be an artist.”
Believing in total transparency, truth and openness in a society obsessed with micromanaging the lives of its 1.3billion inhabitants is a problem for Ai Weiwei. China’s schizophrenic relationship with maintaining repressive regime structures whilst successfully engaging with a free market economy are themes that Weiwei’s work show. A compulsive communicator, his Twitter account logged the artist’s candid thoughts and movements. His belief is that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to spy on.
A documentary about Ai by Alison Klayman asks “Can an artist change China?”. Not just an artist, this artist. An artist that photographed himself flashing his middle finger at Tiananmen Square. An artist whose studio was trashed by Chinese authorities and beaten when he investigated the deaths of schoolchildren in post-earthquake Sichuan. An artist with a voice and a worldwide audience that China is scared of.
Ai Weiwei is not a revolutionary. He is an artist who shows us what it is to be human by example. He is the bridge between China’s past and its future.
www.freeaiweiwei.org
www.lissongallery.com
