Wang Dan's Facebook account shut down

The Facebook account of exiled dissident Wang Dan was closed for over three hours yesterday, a few hours after he commented on the arrest of Ai Weiwei. Wang said his page was closed at about 2pm.

'I strongly suspect that the incident is related to the worsening situation in China,' said Wang, who teaches in Taiwan.

But Wang, who was on Beijing's most-wanted list after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, said at 5.30pm his page resumed after a friend contacted Facebook staff.

'The Facebook staff explained that they closed my Facebook account and fan page because I [also] had a personal account. They don't allow users to administer multiple accounts,' Wang said. 'I don't intend to pursue [this] further as their attitude was quite sincere and my account has been restored.'

Facebook did not reply to an inquiry by the South China Morning Post yesterday.