Burgerfoot

thedailywhat:

Faith In Humanity of the Day: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who was illegally detained for nearly three months, was recently given 15 days to pay off a $2.4 million dollar fine for tax evasion — the crime he was forced to plead guilty to in order to be released from jail.

Since then, Ai has been inundated with cash from thousands supporters, raising $840,000 in less than a week. The famed dissident told AFP that people have been literally throwing money at him: “Every morning we have to pick up the money thrown into the courtyard. Sometimes they are folding it into planes or boats.”

But getting out of one bogus charge might land Ai in another. According to anonymous experts who spoke with China’s Global Times, the unsolicited donations could lead to accusations of “illegal fundraising.”

“We don’t need the money,” Ai told The Guardian, “but we need attention for the public to understand what is going on. They really want to express an opinion … so we will temporarily hold their money for them and then return it.”

[afp / bbc / guardian.]