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This is why you can never trust statements in the media from so-called Chinese "intellectuals" and "academics." If they say anything that does NOT tow the party line, they get punished for it. There is little academic freedom in China - especially in the social sciences.
BEIJING – University authorities reassigned an outspoken Beijing law professor to teach in remote western China — a move he said Thursday may be retaliation for his signing a landmark petition calling for political reform.
He Weifang said administrators at elite Peking University in Beijing approached him earlier this year about transferring to the Central Asian border region of Xinjiang. Though the school frequently sends professors to remote schools for stints, He said he was given no explicit reason for the move.
He had frequent run-ins with university officials over his liberal views. After he signed the Charter '08 petition last December, He said he, like many other signers, was told by officials to change his behavior.
Charter '08 is one of the bolder political statements to emerge from political critics of China's authoritarian government and attracted more than 300 signers, mainly lawyers, scholars and others in the educated elite. The petition challenges the Communist Party's political monopoly, urging greater respect for human rights, a free press and multiparty democracy.
This is why you can never trust statements in the media from so-called Chinese "intellectuals" and "academics." If they say anything that does NOT tow the party line, they get punished for it. There is little academic freedom in China - especially in the social sciences.