(BEIJING) â€" Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei will soon be freed from domestic travel restrictions and other demands imposed following his three-month detention last year, but he says he still won’t be allowed to leave the country.
A notice Thursday from Beijing’s Chaoyang District police headquarters said the year-old restrictions will expire Friday.
Ai was detained April 3, 2011, at Beijing’s airport amid an overarching crackdown on dissent. Following his release on June 22 of that year, he was stripped of his passport and required to be constantly available for questioning.
Ai told The Associated Press that the police â€" citing ongoing investigations â€" would return the passport only on the condition that he not travel abroad.
“I feel this is still an illegal practice,†Ai said.
Following Ai’s release last year, his design company was presented with a 15 million yuan ($2.4 million) bill for back taxes and fines that he has contested. A hearing on Ai’s countersuit against the tax office was held Wednesday, but there was no clear outcome.
The irrepressible Ai had been barred from giving interviews or posting online, restrictions he swiftly ignored.
Internationally renowned for mocking, satirical art, the 54-year-old Ai became the highest-profile target in a crackdown to stop Chinese from imitating the democratic uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. Dozens of rights activists, lawyers and others have been detained, put under house arrest or disappeared, and several of those who have been released have kept almost totally silent ever since.
PHOTOS: Ai Weiwei’s Photographs
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