Ai Weiwei releases video of heavy-metal song

"Why are the cops breaching the door?," asks China's most prominent artist-dissident Ai Weiwei in his latest music video, released on Thursday.

"To see if you’re human.
Why are you breaking in?  
To teach you a lesson, kid."

In the song, Laoma Tihua, he turns video footage of his encounters with Chinese police and court officials in Chengdu, Sichuan province, into an angry broadside against arbitrary violence by police in the country.

The song is named after a Sichuan snack and his eight-part documentary from 2009, in which he recorded his quest to testify at the trial of the now imprisoned anti-corruption crusader, Tan Zuoren.

Ai had to undergo brain surgery due to the injuries received in this vain effort to testify for Tan during his trial in the Sichuan provincial capital.