Supporters of controversial Chinese artist Ai Weiwei who sent money to help him pay a huge tax bill have been subjected to cyberattacks on their personal computers in recent days.
Chen Kaipin, a member of the banned China Democracy Party (CDP) based in the eastern city of Hangzhou, said he and a fellow activist had both experienced computer problems soon after they sent money to help Ai's cause.
"There is now just a red screen across my whole computer," Chen said. "I can't get rid of it ... or change it. It's still there."
"Another problem is that the computer crashes. It just keeps crashing," he said.
In the central province of Hubei, author Liu Yiming said he had heard 17 reports of similar problems, which are widely believed to be the result of hacker attacks.
"This goes to show that their computers are under surveillance," Liu said.
"Afterwards, they were all attacked ... This is no coincidence."
He said the computers all belonged to a group of people who had clubbed together to make a payment to Ai, who was handed a 15 million yuan (U.S. $2.7 million) tax bill earlier this month, with just two weeks to pay up.
"It's very clear that this was an organized attack," Liu said.
Thousands of Chinese netizens have rallied in support of Ai and his family in recent weeks, sending at least 8.7 million yuan (U.S. $1.4 million) via online payment services, or lobbing cash as folded paper airplanes over the gates of his Beijing courtyard home.
Pun video
As a thank-you to his well-wishers, Ai made a video of himself singing the song of the "grass mud horse," a pun on an obscene but common insult which first arose as a satirical swipe at China's Internet censorship, which is often disguised as anti-pornography campaigns.
The official Global Times newspaper said in an opinion piece on Thursday that Ai would be "nothing" without the support of Western countries.
"Ai is a symbol of those dissidents that win full support from the West," the paper said.
"The West has supported many dissidents in China," said the article, which was signed by Shan Renping.
It compared Ai to the late-1970s Chinese activist Wei Jingsheng, who now lives in exile in the United States.
"The Western media once regarded Wei Jingsheng, imprisoned in 1978 for 15 years, as 'the father of Chinese democracy.' That 'father' is now in some little corner of the U.S. and journalists don't even bother to report on him," the paper said.
Ai said on Thursday that he "never paid any attention" to negative press about himself.
"Smear campaigns have totally lost touch with any ethical standards," he said. "Once they start smear campaigns, then we know that they have exhausted their already very limited strength."
Angry response
Ai's tax bill followed his 81-day detention by police at a secret location earlier this year, which sparked an international outcry and prompted an angry response from Beijing.
Official media reports later said he was being detained under investigation for "economic crimes," but Ai and his lawyers suspect the tax charges are a political backlash against his vocal activism on behalf of China's least privileged people.
Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.