The city of Brescia (Italy) refuses China’s censorship request to cancel Badiucao’s exhibit. The mayor: “dissent is a right” (Translation in comments)

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  1. *The exiled artist will exhibit from 13 November. Mayor Del Bono: “Dissent is a right”.*

    The post-its stuck on Hong Kong’s forbidden walls are full of “anti-Chinese lies”. Tank men in white shirts “distort the facts”. Blood-stained watches “spread misinformation”. The stencils, cartoons, soy sauce cans and other viral works ” mislead the mind of the Italian people, seriously hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” and risk compromising international equilibrium. The exhibition in the Museum of Santa Giulia by Badiucao, the Chinese Banksy (by his own self-definition) must be cancelled “quickly” (quote): the request for censorship, which arrived at the City Council of Brescia on the last 15th October, was signed by the cultural office of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Italy.

    Already purged from China off and on-line (exiled in Australia, he has also disappeared from the Asian country’s Internet), the rebel who likened Winnie the Pooh to Chinese President Xi Jinping, clogged up Twitter with his civil complaints and defined the Beijing Olympics as “a staged event” should not be a welcome guest in Brescia. The letter expresses “strong dissatisfaction with the organisation of the exhibition” (to be opened on 12 November) and asks the city council “to act quickly to cancel the activities”. At risk are a “strategic partnership” and relationships of “mutual respect and trust” established over the past 50 years between Italy and China, “mutually beneficial business partners” and “models of civilisation”. The concept is reiterated a few lines later: “Cooperation between the two countries in the fields of culture, tourism, science and education has achieved significant results, which have significantly strengthened exchanges and friendship between the two peoples”. Moreover, in 2022, “the two countries will jointly host a series of cultural and tourist activities”. Therefore, the cultural office hopes that the Municipality and Brescia Musei will “cease these activities”.

    In their reply, the mayor Emilio Del Bono and Francesca Bazoli, president of the Foundation, reciprocated “with gratitude the wish for a solid collaboration between our institutions”. But the exhibition, they wrote, will not be cancelled: it “is part of an itinerary dedicated to understanding contemporary art as a strong and symbolic form of expression of human suffering and freedom of thought, capable of mirroring current times. We are therefore certain that your office will understand that this project is in no way intended to question the important objectives of dialogue and relations” between Italy and China.

    The matter could end up in Rome: local councillor Giangiacomo Calovini (Fratelli d’Italia) has suggested to MPs Andrea Delmastro and Gianpietro Maffoni to submit a question to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate “on the position that the government will take in the face of this serious matter”.

    Translated with DeepL

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