Chinese dissident artist gets back passport after four years

BEIJING: Chinese dissident artist and free speech advocate Ai Weiwei said that authorities in Beijing returned his passport on Wednesday, more than four years after it was confiscated following his 81-day secret detention.
Ai, 58, told Reuters by telephone that police from the Exit and Entry Bureau, which issues passports to Chinese citizens, called him on Wednesday morning to collect his passport, which he now has in hand.
The surprise move comes amid a deepening crackdown on civil society in China.
With his passport he should now be able to attend a retrospective of his work at London’s Royal Academy of Art in September. His non attendance would generate unwanted negative headlines about China in Britain a month before President Xi Jinping is due to visit.
Ai said he is legally allowed to travel outside China, but that will depend on whether other countries issue him visas. “I’m not surprised because in reality, they’ve said they would return me my passport for many years,” Ai said. “They’ve never said they would never give it to me, except that it has dragged on for four years.”
The Ministry of Public Security, which runs the Exit and Entry Bureau, did not respond to a faxed request for comment. Ai’s supporters in the West have called on their governments to lobby China to return Ai’s passport to him. Ai has not been able to attend teaching engagements and exhibitions in Germany, the United States and England. Ai said the first country he would want to travel to is Germany, where he would like to have a medical check-up and visit his son, who has been living in Berlin for 11 months.