Ai Weiwei Barred from Entering Switzerland Over Visa Issues
By Annette Meier
Portrait of AI WEIWEI. Photo by and courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio.
On February 10, Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei was denied entry to Switzerland after Zurich Airport authorities rejected his Portugal-issued visa.
Documenting the situation on social media, Ai revealed that Swiss border patrol held him in the airport overnight before putting him on a flight back to London the next morning. He shared videos and photos of his stay at the airport, including a document adducing the refused entry to Ai’s lack of a visa. In an initial post, Ai alleged that a border patrol agent told him: “This is Switzerland, not Portugal.”
Ai, who left China in 2015 to settle in Germany and the UK, relocated to Portugal at the start of the pandemic. For the last two years he has been living and working in Montemor-o-Novo, a town just outside Lisbon. According to a report by Hyperallergic, Ai noted that he holds permanent residency in Portugal and that his visa renewal had been postponed due to the Portuguese government’s severe backlog of applications. In 2024, authorities extended the validity of immigrant documents through June 30 of this year to cope with processing delays.
With a temporarily valid visa in hand, Ai planned to visit his friend Uli Sigg—a Swiss businessman, art collector, and the former Swiss ambassador to China—but Zurich Airport authorities refused to recognize the visa extension. In a statement to ArtAsiaPacific, Ai said: “I was denied entry to Switzerland on the grounds of routine procedures, but this justification feels unfounded, given that Switzerland is part of the Schengen Area and I hold permanent residency in Portugal. I believe that in today’s world, there are often underlying factors at play—subtle reasons that people might not even consciously recognize.”
A Zurich cantonal police spokesman confirmed on February 11 that Ai was blocked from entering because he “did not have the required documentation that he needs as a Chinese citizen to enter the Schengen area.” He emphasized that the artist was not arrested, and was able to move freely in the airport’s transit lounge until his return flight to the UK.
Ai described the Swiss authorities’ approach as “dehumanizing,” adding that “[a]s someone who has not renounced my Chinese citizenship, I frequently encounter both major and minor difficulties. A passport is more than just a travel document; it is a marker of identity. . . . For someone like me—an exile, perpetually drifting from place to place—facing situations like this is not unusual.”
Annette Meier is an editorial assistant at ArtAsiaPacific.
