A member of Ai Weiwei’s studio was reportedly detained by police evacuating the Idomeni refugee camp on the border between Greece and Macedonia this week. Lu Hengzhong, who has been filming at Idomeni for the past 12 weeks, was gathering footage at the train station that runs through the camp when two policemen stopped her on 24 May, according to a post on Ai’s Instagram account. She was forced to switch off her camera before being questioned by three plain clothed policemen about her filming equipment.
“Lu Hengzhong was put into a police car and was brought to the police station in Polykastro,” Ai’s post says. She was released several hours later.
The Polykastro police department could not be reached for comment, but volunteers and members of the media were told they would be arrested if they did not leave the camp, according to France 24. Only the state broadcaster ERT and the state controlled ANA-MPA news agency are now allowed to report from Idomeni.
In an operation that began at dawn on 24 May, more than 400 riot police were sent into the makeshift camp to evacuate the people living there. At its peak in March, when Macedonia shut its border, it was estimated the camp was home to 14,000 people from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, but numbers have since fallen.
Ai has been documenting refugees arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos and at the Idomeni camp since December. He plans to make a feature-length film about their plight, which is due out next year.
