China shuts down gender violence expo before inauguration

Chinese authorities have shut down an art exhibition on gender violence on the eve of its inauguration, a media report said.

"I tried to explain that the event was to mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25) and what we are doing is legal, but we were told we didn't have authorisation," the event's curator Cui Guangxia told EFE news on Friday.

Despite insistence by Cui and other artists who had contributed to the exhibition, they were not allowed to open the show as scheduled.

Exhibition pieces - among them a bra sewn to banknotes depicting the face of Mao Zedong, and a picture of a woman attached to a protest banner against child abuse - were returned to the artists, Cui added.