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Dissident Chinese language artist Gao Zhen, internationally recognized for his provocative sculptures of Mao Zedong, was arrested throughout his go to to China from the US, his brother mentioned.
Gao Zhen, 68, was arrested on 26 August throughout a raid by dozens of law enforcement officials on suspicion of slandering China’s heroes and martyrs, his brother Gao Qiang, 62, mentioned. The offence is punishable by as much as three years in jail.
The artist, who moved to the US two years in the past, was visiting his household in Hebei province when he was arrested by the Chinese language police, his brother mentioned in a Fb publish.
He mentioned about 30 law enforcement officials raided his brother’s artwork studio final week in Yanjiao, a city in Sanhe Metropolis, an hour away from Beijing, and confiscated a number of the art work and his cell phone earlier than taking him in custody.
The art work taken away by the police was created greater than 10 years in the past and “reassessed Mao’s Cultural Revolution”, he mentioned. Chinese language authorities haven’t responded to the allegations by Qiang, BBC reported.
Mao is the revered founder of the Folks’s Republic of China who launched the Cultural Revolution of the Nineteen Sixties and 70s.
The sculptures included “Mao’s Guilt”, a statue exhibiting Mao along with his hand on his coronary heart, “The Execution of Christ”, exhibiting Mao’s firing squad taking goal at Jesus, and “Miss Mao”, a group of statues of Mao with giant breasts and a Pinocchio-like nostril.
The Sanhe Metropolis public safety bureau was notified in regards to the arrest, however has not issued an announcement but.
Earlier than shifting to the US, the brothers had a fraught historical past with the Chinese language authorities over their politically delicate art work. They’d their exhibitions shut down and their studios had been additionally raided throughout their keep however prevented dealing with critical actions.
To keep away from entering into hassle, that they had invite-only exhibitions with location revealed solely by means of phrase of mouth or coded textual content messages simply hours earlier than the occasions.
Usually referred to as Chairman Mao, the founding father of Communist China in 1949 led the nation by means of the Cultural Revolution, a tumultuous interval within the Nineteen Sixties and Seventies throughout which the financial system stagnated, colleges had been closed, and a few historians estimate that as many as 1.5 million individuals died and hundreds of thousands extra had been persecuted within the political upheaval.
Mao’s regime was marked by extreme human rights abuses, together with the suppression of political dissent, mass executions, and the usage of compelled labour camps. Although Mao stays a divisive determine, his picture adorns China’s banknotes and his embalmed physique attracts lots of, if not 1000’s, of tourists every day in Beijing.
The daddy of the Gao brothers throughout that interval was labelled as a “class enemy” and brought to a spot that was “not a jail, not a police station, however one thing else”, the place he died, Zhen informed The New York Instances in 2009.
In 2021, China made slandering of heroes and martyrs a legal offence, as a part of a newly amended legal code. It was made punishable with three years’ imprisonment.
