Artist Ai Weiwei is the latest symbol of revolt:
Spotted in that hotbed of radicalism, South Tottenham. "Spread the street campaign from London", it says here. Which seems, at least in part, to be a promotion for a forthcoming film about the man, Never Sorry. There's a short video here.
"Can an artist change China?" they ask. Well....you have to start somewhere, I suppose, and with his recent arrest and release he's now become the face of dissidence in China (though I wasn't particularly impressed with his recent Sunflower Seeds display at Tate Modern). Is anyone putting these stickers up round Beijing, though?
Graffiti denouncing Kim Jong Il has allegedly been found on a wall in Pyongyang, causing the authorities to launch a crackdown to uncover the culprit.
According to one Chinese-Korean trader working between the North Korean capital and Dandong, China, “Graffiti denouncing Kim Jong Il was found on the wall of Pyongyang Railroad College on the 24th; the inspections and regulations are phenomenal. Nobody can come or go from Pyongyang.”
The graffiti apparently stated, “Park Chung Hee and Kim Jong Il are both dictators; Park Chung Hee a dictator who developed his country’s economy, Kim Jong Il a dictator who starved people to death.” One syllable was a man's head and was written on a red brick wall in white chalk, making it quite striking.
Park Chung-hee, for those who don't know, was South Korea's authoritarian ruler from 1961 till his assassination in 1979, and the man credited with his country's industrialisation.
“In order to catch the culprit, regulations and inspections targeting visitors to Pyongyang as well as the city’s citizens went on for three days, until the morning of the 27th,” the source said. “They wouldn’t even sell train tickets, so my schedule got pushed back. One person visiting his son in the military in Pyongyang was not able to get home.”...
According to the trader, the authorities launched the search for the person responsible via a joint investigation team including the National Security Agency and People’s Safety Ministry, specifically targeting students and people from other provinces. They established road blocks on the roads linking Pyongyang Station and West Pyongyang Station, Pyongyang-Pyongsung, Pyongyang-Wonsan and Pyongyang-Kanri, then began questioning all passers’ by.
Reporting the latest, he said, “The investigation unit has now narrowed down the investigation to the Railroad College’s own students, and has blocked the movement of people between provinces in order to stop the spread of rumors. It seems they are dealing with it severely since it happened in Pyongyang not in the provinces.”
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