A Beijing law professor who has been an outspoken critic of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was released yesterday after six days of detention, his friends said.
Xu Zhangrun (許章潤), a 57-year-old constitutional law professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, returned home yesterday morning, but remained under surveillance and was not free to speak publicly about what happened, said one of his friends, who declined to be identified.
Calls to the media departments of the Beijing police and the university seeking comment went unanswered.
Beijing police never confirmed his detention.
Xu first came to prominence in July 2018 for denouncing the removal of the two-term limit for China’s president, which will allow Xi to remain in office beyond his current second term.
According to a text message circulated among Xu’s friends and seen by reporters, he was taken from his house in suburban Beijing on Monday last week by more than 20 policemen, who searched his house and confiscated his computer.
According to Xu’s friends, police told his wife that he was being detained for allegedly soliciting prostitution during a trip to Chengdu, but at least two friends dismissed that allegation as character assassination.
A friend believed that his detention was linked to a book he published last month in New York City that contained a collection of political essays criticizing the CCP’s rule under Xi, Bloomberg reported yesterday.
Since the 2018 article, Xu has written other critiques of the party.
At the peak of the nation’s COVID-19 outbreak in February, he wrote an article calling for freedom of speech.
In May, before the delayed annual Chinese National People’s Congress meeting, he wrote an article accusing Xi of trying to bring the Cultural Revolution back to China.
The US on Tuesday called for Xu’s release.
“We are deeply concerned by the PRC’s detention of professor Xu Zhangrun for criticizing Chinese leaders amid tightening ideological controls on university campuses in China. The PRC must release Xu and uphold its international commitments to respect freedom of expression,” US Department of State spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a tweet.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg and AFP
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique