Chinese authorities have served Ai Weiwei with an official demand telling him to pay 15m yuan ($2.3m) within 15 days, the artist has said.
In an interview with Newshour, the artist said the Chinese authorities did not feel the need to justify their charges.
He said: “If they really want to do something to prove I am a bad guy, why don’t they behave themselves to make the process more transparent, to be understandable?”
The artist, one of China’s most famous people, was held for almost three months earlier this year before being accused of “economic crimes”.
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