December 10, 2013

"I’m just a university faculty member who expresses his own opinions, thoughts and proposals, which is absolutely my right. This is an out-and-out witch hunt."

Said Zhang Xuezhong, fired from his job at the East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai.
Professor Zhang, 47, has had run-ins with school administrators over his writings, but their unhappiness with him deepened last May after he publicized the contents of a secret document, produced by the central government, detailing seven subjects that are not allowed to be discussed in Chinese classrooms. The banned topics included democracy, freedom of speech and past mistakes of the Communist Party....

Professor Zhang’s undoing appears to be an article he published online in June titled “The Origin and the Perils of the Anti-Constitutionalism Campaign in 2013.”

13 comments:

BigFire said...

Welcome to the academic freedom comrade. There isn't one, not here, not in China.

Sam L. said...

Yep, and he IS the witch the gummint is looking for.

A. Shmendrik said...

Life is tough, all over.

YoungHegelian said...

....officials also cited an e-book he wrote this year called “New Common Sense: The Nature and Consequences of One-Party Dictatorship.”

Chinese officialdom is not so stupid that it doesn't know what happened last time some guy wrote a pamphlet called "Common Sense".

Sorun said...

That's what happens to right-wingers on campus.

n.n said...

"the quest for manliness essentially rightwing, puritanical, cowardly, neurotic, and fueled largely by a fear of women"

The overbearing central committee only has in mind the best interests of all her children.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

"seven subjects that are not allowed to be discussed in Chinese classrooms"

There's a George Carlin monologue begging to be written. Didn't Alec Baldwin just get fired from MSNBC for using one of Carlin's seventy dirty words?

virgil xenophon said...

The guy DID realize he was living in COMMUNIST China, did he not?

Doh..

Unknown said...

Nothing like that would ever happen in America.

David said...

A NON Communist uses the term 'witch hunt'? Not on my watch!
http://notmartinbashir.blogspot.com/2013/12/teacher-someone-else-said-bad-word.html

David said...

Sorry, Facebook has spoiled me, used to being able to fix stuff after hitting publish.

Not on my watch!

Bob Ellison said...

That's an impressive depth of English idiom. Maybe it's a creative translator. Sounds false to me, though.

rhhardin said...

I express my opinions all the time.

That gets you banned from mandatory diversity awareness seminars in the still-free nonacademic world.