China: artist lists earthquake dead on web

A Chinese artist is poking his head above the parapet of the Forbidden City.

Ai Weiwei helped design Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium. Now he is publishing a list of children killed in last May’s earthquake in Sichuan, in the absence of any proper accounting elsewhere. He’s also not afraid to point out that hundreds died because their school buildings had not been properly constructed.

The government barred journalists from freely reporting on this scandal, so his blog – http://blog.sina.com.cn/aiweiwei – is where readers of Chinese should go, before Beijing pulls the website down.

Though as the son of Ai Qing, one of China’s best known modern poets, Mr Ai may may have some protection. Sichuan province itself is still to come up with a final number of children who were killed, some 10 months after the event.

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