Law & Politics
China Will Deport Guo Jian to Australia
Benjamin Sutton
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The Chinese-Australian artist Guo Jian, who was arrested earlier this month in Beijing over his sculptural homage to the Tiananmen Square protests on their 25th anniversary, will be deported back to Australia, the BBC reports. Though he relocated to Australia in 1992 and has become a citizen, Guo returned to China in 2005.
“Chinese authorities have advised that Mr Guo was detained on a visa-related matter,” the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “We understand Mr Guo will be detained for 15 days and will then required to depart China.”
Guo was a university student at the time of the Tiananmen Square protests, and was an active participant, according to his comments in the very same Financial Times article that brought his ground-meat covered sculpture to the authorities’ attention.
“My university locked the gates. It didn’t want us to go out,” he told the FT. “But that just made me more curious. So I jumped over the wall just to have a look. I didn’t have the courage to join the first time but the second time I walked along with them.”
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