COVID-19 Outlook
  • Global
  • By US State
    • A-F
      • Coronavirus Alabama
      • Coronavirus Alaska
      • Coronavirus Arizona
      • Coronavirus Arkansas
      • Coronavirus California
      • Coronavirus Colorado
      • Coronavirus Connecticut
      • Coronavirus Delaware
      • Coronavirus Dist. of Columbia
      • Coronavirus Florida
    • G-L
      • Coronavirus Georgia
      • Coronavirus Guam
      • Coronavirus Hawaii
      • Coronavirus Idaho
      • Coronavirus Illinois
      • Coronavirus Indiana
      • Coronavirus Iowa
      • Coronavirus Kansas
      • Coronavirus Kentucky
      • Coronavirus Louisiana
    • M-R
      • Coronavirus Maryland
      • Coronavirus Maine
      • Coronavirus Massachusetts
      • Coronavirus Michigan
      • Coronavirus Minnesota
      • Coronavirus Mississippi
      • Coronavirus Missouri
      • Coronavirus Montana
      • Coronavirus Nebraska
      • Coronavirus Nevada
      • Coronavirus New Hampshire
      • Coronavirus New Jersey
      • Coronavirus New Mexico
      • Coronavirus New York
      • Coronavirus North Carolina
      • Coronavirus North Dakota
      • Coronavirus Ohio
      • Coronavirus Oklahoma
      • Coronavirus Oregon
      • Coronavirus Pennsylvania
      • Coronavirus Puerto Rico
      • Coronavirus Rhode Island
    • S-Z
      • Coronavirus South Carolina
      • Coronavirus South Dakota
      • Coronavirus Tennessee
      • Coronavirus Texas
      • Coronavirus Utah
      • Coronavirus Vermont
      • Coronavirus Virgin Islands and the Caribbean
      • Coronavirus Virginia
      • Coronavirus Washington
      • Coronavirus West Virginia
      • Coronavirus Wisconsin
      • Coronavirus Wyoming
  • Symptoms
    • Quarantine
  • Celebrities
  • News
    • Coronavirus Strange and Conspiracy
    • Supplies and Shortages
    • White House Updates
    • Travel and Tourism
  • Shopping Online
    • Poshmark
    • Ebay
    • Mercari Coming Soon
    • AliExpress Coming Soon
    • Amazon Coming Soon
  • Pets
COVID-19 Outlook
  • Global
  • By US State
    • A-F
      • Coronavirus Alabama
      • Coronavirus Alaska
      • Coronavirus Arizona
      • Coronavirus Arkansas
      • Coronavirus California
      • Coronavirus Colorado
      • Coronavirus Connecticut
      • Coronavirus Delaware
      • Coronavirus Dist. of Columbia
      • Coronavirus Florida
    • G-L
      • Coronavirus Georgia
      • Coronavirus Guam
      • Coronavirus Hawaii
      • Coronavirus Idaho
      • Coronavirus Illinois
      • Coronavirus Indiana
      • Coronavirus Iowa
      • Coronavirus Kansas
      • Coronavirus Kentucky
      • Coronavirus Louisiana
    • M-R
      • Coronavirus Maryland
      • Coronavirus Maine
      • Coronavirus Massachusetts
      • Coronavirus Michigan
      • Coronavirus Minnesota
      • Coronavirus Mississippi
      • Coronavirus Missouri
      • Coronavirus Montana
      • Coronavirus Nebraska
      • Coronavirus Nevada
      • Coronavirus New Hampshire
      • Coronavirus New Jersey
      • Coronavirus New Mexico
      • Coronavirus New York
      • Coronavirus North Carolina
      • Coronavirus North Dakota
      • Coronavirus Ohio
      • Coronavirus Oklahoma
      • Coronavirus Oregon
      • Coronavirus Pennsylvania
      • Coronavirus Puerto Rico
      • Coronavirus Rhode Island
    • S-Z
      • Coronavirus South Carolina
      • Coronavirus South Dakota
      • Coronavirus Tennessee
      • Coronavirus Texas
      • Coronavirus Utah
      • Coronavirus Vermont
      • Coronavirus Virgin Islands and the Caribbean
      • Coronavirus Virginia
      • Coronavirus Washington
      • Coronavirus West Virginia
      • Coronavirus Wisconsin
      • Coronavirus Wyoming
  • Symptoms
    • Quarantine
  • Celebrities
  • News
    • Coronavirus Strange and Conspiracy
    • Supplies and Shortages
    • White House Updates
    • Travel and Tourism
  • Shopping Online
    • Poshmark
    • Ebay
    • Mercari Coming Soon
    • AliExpress Coming Soon
    • Amazon Coming Soon
  • Pets
  • COVID-19 News

China detains prominent law professor Xu Zhangrun

  • July 6, 2020
  • Publisher
Total
0
Shares
0
0
0


Tsinghua University law professor Xu Zhangrun, one of China’s few remaining outspoken critics of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Communist government, was taken from his home in Beijing by police on Monday morning.

Close friends of Xu’s who spoke with his family confirmed that he had been arrested and that they did not know where the police had taken him.

About 20 police officers surrounded Xu’s home Monday morning while more than 10 others entered, searched the residence, confiscated his computer and then took Xu away, according to a statement from friends of Xu, which has been widely circulated among Chinese activists.

Police did not make any public statement about Xu’s arrest or any charges.

The Chinese legal expert had taught jurisprudence and constitutional law at Tsinghua, one of China’s most prestigious universities, but was suspended in 2019 after publishing a series of essays that criticized Xi’s alteration of the Chinese constitution to remove presidential term limits.

Xu’s detention is the latest amid a crackdown on dissent and free speech in China that has especially targeted intellectuals and those who stray from the Communist Party narrative of state-led victory over the country’s coronavirus outbreak. Space for dissent continues to shrink under Xi’s regime, as those who voice challenges to the party’s authority are picked off one by one.

Novelist Fang Fang, whose published diary depicts everyday people’s suffering during lockdown in the city of Wuhan and seeks accountability for government missteps, has become the target of nationalistic attacks with implicit state support. Several professors who wrote essays supporting Fang Fang have been put under investigation or fired and stripped of their Communist Party membership.

Ren Zhiqiang, a real estate tycoon with powerful political connections — his father was among the generation of Communist revolutionaries who founded the People’s Republic of China — also disappeared earlier this year after he wrote an essay calling Xi a “clown” over his handling of COVID-19. The party later announced that Ren was under investigation for “serious violations of law and discipline.”

Several citizen journalists who tried to report on the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan have also been detained. They include lawyer Chen Qiushi, Wuhan local Fang Bin, and former CCTV employee Li Zehua, who reappeared in April after disappearing for two months. Li gave a video statement in which he said that the police had acted “civilly and legally,” demonstrating care for him while he was in detention and quarantine.

The others remain missing.

Earlier this year, human rights lawyer and activist Xu Zhiyong (no relation to Xu Zhangrun) was also arrested in southern China after he called for Xi’s resignation online. He had been part of a circle of dissidents, lawyers, intellectuals and civil society members who met in the port city of Xiamen in December to discuss how to build citizenship and rule of law in China.

More than a dozen attendees of those meetings have been detained or called to court, while others remain in hiding.

Others who have been jailed, vanished, put under house arrest or pressured into silence through threats to their families, jobs and lives in recent months include lawyers, poets, petitioners, COVID-19 survivors and their families.

Xu Zhangrun had been under pressure since 2018, long before the pandemic, for penning pointed criticisms of China’s current political state. His essays are both literary and analytical, at once striking at the heart of party authority and offering policy suggestions for change, all with a poetic flourish.

In his first 2018 essay, titled “Our imminent fears and hopes,” Xu criticized Xi’s erasure of term limits, suppression of intellectuals, overspending on foreign aid while inequality worsened at home, and pulling China back into a period of isolationism and personality cult-led politics.

Xu called for officials to disclose their personal assets and for an end to the system that provides access to better healthcare, vacation resorts and safe food for high-level cadres.

After that essay, Xu was suspended from teaching, put under multiple periods of house arrest and blocked from leaving China, according to his friends. But he continued to write.

In February, at the height of China’s coronavirus outbreak, as calls for freedom of speech swept the nation after a whistle-blowing doctor’s death, Xu wrote “The angry people are no longer afraid,” an essay lambasting Xi and the “ethically bankrupt” Communist Party for prioritizing their power above Chinese citizens’ lives.

“It is a system that turns every natural disaster into an even greater man-made catastrophe,” Xu wrote. “The coronavirus epidemic has revealed the rotten core of Chinese governance.”

Get breaking news, investigations, analysis and more signature journalism from the Los Angeles Times in your inbox.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

After that essay, Xu was again placed under house arrest and periodically cut off from the Internet. He was aware of looming imprisonment: “This may well be the last thing I write,” he noted in the essay. “But that is not up to me.”

He was able to meet with friends and fellow professors for meals periodically, according to his colleagues.

In May, just before China’s national political meetings in Beijing, Xu wrote a final essay titled “China, a lone ship on the vast ocean of global civilization,” lamenting China’s continued slide toward totalitarianism and calling again for accountability, release of detained journalists, free speech, protection of property and transparency.

“Enough with this mold-infested god-making movement, this shallow worship of leaders,” he wrote. “Enough with this seven years of absurdity and confusion, the backwards step-by-step, this 70 years of mountains of corpses and oceans of blood…”

He signed it: “With outrage, worry, and sorrow.”




Source link

Total
0
Shares
Share 0
Tweet 0
Pin it 0
Related Topics
  • China
  • detains
  • law
  • Professor
  • Prominent
  • virus update
  • Zhangrun
Previous Article
  • COVID-19 News

Prominent Critic Of China's Leadership Detained In Beijing

  • July 6, 2020
  • Publisher
View Post
Next Article
  • COVID-19 News

How To Negotiate Everything In Life

  • July 6, 2020
  • Publisher
View Post
You May Also Like
View Post

Trump’s travel bans caused heartache and suffering. For what?

  • January 25, 2021
View Post

The Latest: Virus rules make for long lines at German border

  • January 25, 2021
View Post

Miley Cyrus announces she will perform for healthcare workers at Super Bowl

  • January 24, 2021
View Post

Here’s Why Drew Sidora is Missing From Group Events on RHOA This Season

  • January 24, 2021
View Post

Why Did Javi Marroquin and Lauren Comeau Break Up? Details

  • January 24, 2021
View Post

New Brunswick boy driving a mini-Zamboni noticed by NHL

  • January 24, 2021
View Post

Seth Rogan Ted Cruz Twitter Fight

  • January 24, 2021
View Post

First Godzilla Vs. Kong Trailer Filled With Monster-On-Monster Carnage

  • January 24, 2021

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent Posts
  • Trump’s travel bans caused heartache and suffering. For what?
    • January 25, 2021
  • The Latest: Virus rules make for long lines at German border
    • January 25, 2021
  • Trey Songz arrested after physical altercation with police officer
    • January 24, 2021
Sponsored
  • Digital Agency
  • Xpurity
  • Tech Music and Gaming News
  • Industrial News and Resources
  • Headline & Celebrity News
  • Celebrity News & Gossip
  • Adult social media
  • Chicago escorts
  • Breaking News
  • Real Clear Politics
  • Travel News
  • Trending Celebrities
  • Adult SEO
  • Fashion and Celebrity Style
  • Music and Entertainement News
  • California Escorts
  • Chicago escorts
  • Best Chicago Escorts
Categories
Featured Posts
  • Trump’s travel bans caused heartache and suffering. For what?

    • January 25, 2021
    View Post
  • The Latest: Virus rules make for long lines at German border

    • January 25, 2021
    View Post
  • Trey Songz arrested after physical altercation with police officer

    • January 24, 2021
    View Post
  • Miley Cyrus announces she will perform for healthcare workers at Super Bowl

    • January 24, 2021
    View Post
  • Here’s Why Drew Sidora is Missing From Group Events on RHOA This Season

    • January 24, 2021
    View Post

Subscribe

Subscribe now to our newsletter

Covid-19 Outlook
  • Contact
  • Advertising
Your trusted Coronavirus Covid-19 source.

Input your search keywords and press Enter.