 In April 2011, Westerwelle summoned China's ambassador to Germany, Wu Hongbo, for a meeting about detained Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei, calling for his release and denouncing China's growing use of extrajudicial detentions against dissidents.In September 2012, Westerwelle joined his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh in visiting the Zaatari refugee camp to learn more about the plight of Syrians fleeing the violence in the ongoing Syrian civil war that erupted in 2011.After the offices of both the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in St Petersburg and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Moscow were investigated by prosecutors and tax inspectors in March 2013, Westerwelle summoned the envoy at the Russian embassy in Berlin to relay his "concern over the concerted action".