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Dissident Chinese language artist Gao Zhen, internationally identified 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 put up.
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 paintings and his cell phone earlier than taking him in custody.
The paintings 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 Individuals’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 together with his hand on his coronary heart, “The Execution of Christ”, exhibiting Mao’s firing squad taking purpose at Jesus, and “Miss Mao”, a group of statues of Mao with massive 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 transferring to the US, the brothers had a fraught historical past with the Chinese language authorities over their politically delicate paintings. They’d their exhibitions shut down and their studios have been additionally raided throughout their keep however averted going through severe actions.
To keep away from moving into hassle, they’d invite-only exhibitions with location revealed solely by way 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 way of the Cultural Revolution, a tumultuous interval within the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, throughout which the economic system stagnated, faculties have been closed, and a few historians estimate that as many as 1.5 million folks died and tens of millions extra have been persecuted within the political upheaval.
Mao’s regime was accused of extreme human rights abuses, together with the suppression of political dissent, and using pressured labour camps. Although Mao stays a divisive determine, his picture adorns China’s banknotes and his embalmed physique attracts a whole lot, if not hundreds, 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 mentioned.
In 2021, China made slandering of heroes and martyrs a prison offence, as a part of a newly amended prison code. It was made punishable with three years’ imprisonment.
