{"id":28236,"date":"2012-06-25T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-25T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=28236 "},"modified":"2012-06-25T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-06-25T18:00:00","slug":"28236-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=28236","title":{"rendered":"Though Some Restrictions Lifted, Ai Weiwei Still Cannot Leave China"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Dissident artist Ai Weiwei gained a bit of freedom Thursday when authorities said they would lift domestic travel restrictions imposed a year earlier, but he was still barred from leaving the country.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">A notice from Beijing&#8217;s Chaoyang District police headquarters that Ai received Thursday said his domestic travel restrictions will expire Friday, exactly a year after his release following nearly three months of detention. Ai, 55, had been the highest-profile target in a crackdown in spring 2011 to stop Chinese from imitating democratic uprisings in the Arab World. Despite the treatment, he remains an outspoken government critic.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Ai said police told him Thursday he cannot travel outside China because he remains under investigation on charges of pornography and illegal exchange of foreign currency, which Ai said are far-fetched.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Ai &#8212; known for his mocking, satirical art, was detained April 3, 2011 &#8212; at Beijing&#8217;s airport. Following his release .on June 22 of that year, he was stripped of his passport and required to be constantly available for questioning.<\/span>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Ai told The Associated Press on Thursday that the police would return his passport only on the condition that he not travel abroad.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">&#8220;I feel this is still an illegal practice,&#8221; said Ai, who has plans to travel to Washington D.C. later this year for an art exhibit, as well as several other foreign cities.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">&#8220;If I am not allowed to leave the country, I will have to cancel the trips, but I will make some efforts,&#8221; Ai said.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: white; font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; \">Continue reading&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/arts\/story\/2012\/06\/21\/weiwei-restrictions-lift-travel.html\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; line-height: 17.6pt; color: #034af3; \"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; \">original article<\/span><\/strong><\/a><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: white; font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; \">.<\/span>&nbsp;<br \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A year ago officials placed severe restrictions on Ai&#39;s travel, both domestic and international, upon his release from detention. &amp;nbsp;Ai is still not permitted to travel abroad, however.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}