In the days since the Chinese government delivered a punitive 15 million yuan (€1.7 million) tax bill to the artist Ai Weiwei, thousands of people have responded by donating money in a gesture that is at once benevolent and subversive.
More than 20,000 people have together contributed more than €400,000 since last Tuesday, when tax officials gave Ai 15 days to come up with an amount that was more than three times the original sum he was accused of evading in taxes.
"It's surprising, it has really changed my perspective on people," he said in a telephone interview yesterday, describing how scores of supporters, some of whom travelled from distant cities, have been delivering cash to his home.
One of China's best known artists and a voluble government critic, Ai was detained last April and held for 81 days at an undisclosed location, ostensibly on tax evasion charges, according to the state media. Ai, however, insists his prosecution is politically motivated.
During his confinement, he said his questioners were only interested in discussing his activism, particularly his role in the so-called Jasmine Revolution, pro-democracy protests inspired by events in the Arab World. Mr Ai says he was not involved in organizing the protests, which were effectively stymied by the Chinese authorities.
Since his release last June, Mr Ai (54) has kept a low profile, one of the conditions of his bail.
But the imposed silence ill-suited Mr Ai, who has increasingly bridled against the restrictions, among them a prohibition against talking to the news media or communicating publicly through Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblogging service.
Since the amount of his fine became public last Tuesday, Ai appears to have shed any reluctance to speak out and has lambasted the tax penalty as naked retribution for his critiques against the governing Communist Party.
The donations began pouring in on Thursday, many of them delivered electronically and accompanied by politically tinged comments.
"You helped them to design the Bird's Nest, but they sent you into a bird cage," said one donor, referring to Ai's role in designing the Olympic stadium in Beijing. "You charged them fees, but now they fine you more than hundreds of times that in blood and sweat."
Some contributions have been small - symbolic, fractional sums of the total fine - while others are in the thousands of dollars.Ai said one businessman offered him 1 million yuan, but he turned it down, saying he preferred to receive smaller sums. Ai has insisted on describing the money as loans that he will later repay.
Yesterday, after his Weibo account was disabled, dozens of people began arriving at the gate of his studio on the outskirts of the capital. Ai said a number of people had folded 100 yuan notes into airplanes and tossed them over the walls of his compound.
"Over the past three years, during all the efforts I've made, sometimes I felt like I was crying alone in a dark tunnel," he said. "But now people have a way to express their true feelings. This is a really, really beautiful event."
New York Times