UK initially denies Ai Weiwei visa over criminal claim, then reverses decision after intervention

So, Ai Weiwei initially had his application for a six-month visa turned down by the British government because he didn’t mention a past criminal conviction. But on July 31, 2015, Home Secretary Theresa May stepped in and told officials to approve his visa. After spending 81 days in detention back in 2011 without being convicted of anything, Ai finally got his passport back from China. UK officials later shared on Instagram that they would issue him a temporary 20-day visa for his exhibition opening in London in September 2015. Despite his efforts to sort things out with UK Visas and Immigration and the British Embassy in Beijing, he had no luck until the decision was changed. The BBC pointed out that Ai had never been formally charged.