An Italian city is to host an art exhibition by a Chinese dissident despite a request from China’s embassy to cancel it, the mayor said in comments published on Friday.
The exhibition by Badiucao, a cartoonist also known as “The Chinese Banksy,” is expected to denounce Chinese political repression and censorship of information on the COVID-19 pandemic.
The show, called “China is (not) near,” is due to run from Nov. 13 to Feb. 13 in the northern Italian city of Brescia, about 100km east of Milan.
Brescia Mayor Emilio Del Bono told Il Foglio newspaper that his office would not comply with a request from the Chinese embassy in Italy to scrap it.
He said the friendship between the Italian and Chinese people “is not in question,” but “I think it is important to show that you can stay friends while criticizing some things.”
Brescia Deputy Mayor Laura Castelletti earlier wrote on Twitter that “for us art and freedom of expression are an essential combination.”
Her message accompanied pictures of newspaper reports about the alleged censorship request from the cultural affairs office of the Chinese embassy in Rome.
Local paper Giornale di Brescia has quoted a letter from the cultural office to the council, in which it complained that Badiucao’s works “are full of anti-Chinese lies.”
It alleged that they “distort facts, spread false information,” mislead the Italian public and “jeopardize friendly relations between China and Italy.”
Badiucao, who lives in Australia, calls himself on social media a “Chinese-Aussie Artist hunted by CCP [Chinese Communist Party].”
He says the event in Brescia would be his first international solo exhibition.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS