Most of us don't enjoy paying taxes. But trust us, it could be worse: Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei just received a tax bill from his government for $2.4 million, under suspicious circumstances. Ai has been heavily critical of China's government in the past, and rights activists are calling the bill "a pretext for silencing the artist who has been a fierce government critic".

Until 2008, Ai was favoured enough by the Chinese authorities that he was hired as the artistic consultant on their Olympic stadium (despite the fact that he distanced himself from the regime that built it following its construction). In the years since the Olympic games, he has been persecuted and imprisoned by the Chinese government. Here are some of the abuses Ai says he's suffered at the hands of the authorities:

2009: Detained and Beaten Over a Blog Post 

Ai's blog site, which the Economist has referred to as "a digital rallying cry", was turned into a book called "Ai Weiwei's Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009" last year. In 2009, Ai published a list of the names of 5,835 students who were killed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. His blog was subsequently shut down by authorities, and he says he was detained and beaten for trying to testify - on behalf of his fellow investigator, Tan Zuoren - about the poor construction that led to the students' deaths.

2010: Placed Under House Arrest 

In November, 2010, the Chinese police put Ai under house arrest in order, they said, to prevent planned demonstrations against the demolition of his studio in Shanghai.

2011: Studio Demolished, Detained for 81 Days, $2.4 Million Tax Bill 

In January of this year, Ai's studio was torn down by the authorities. Then in April, he was arrested at Peking Airport and taken into custody, where he remained for 81 days. He was released in June. And now today's news: he is being ordered to pay 15m yuan (CAN $2.4 million) in back taxes and fines, apparently without any evidence to prove that he owes that amount.

The tax bill is raising the suspicions of many activists in China, who believe the whole situation is merely a pretext to silence Ai. According to Songlian Wang, research coordinator for Chinese Human Rights Defenders, "it appears the government is set to destroy him, if not economically then at least by setting up the stage to later arrest him for failing to pay back taxes".