Chinese Dissident | featured news

Chinese dissident Fang Lizhi, whose speeches helped inspire the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, has died aged 76, says a fellow activist.

In a strong affront to the Chinese government’s attempt to censor artists and internet users, fans of the artist Ai Weiwei have raised more than $830,000 in three days through social media to help the artist fight a $2.4 million tax bill from the state.

Ai Weiwei, the dissident artist whose secret detention earlier this year stirred an international outcry, has been given two weeks to pay $2.4 million in back taxes and penalties, he said Tuesday.

Experts say 2011 has seen a sharp and worrisome increase inside China of a security tactic that a United Nations international convention has sought to outlaw since 2010.

One of China's most prominent dissidents, Hu Jia, was reunited with his family early on Sunday after serving three-and-a-half-years in jail on subversion charges, but he needed rest and was not ready to speak in public, his wife said.