Macau scholars warn of rising censorship, loss of confidence in 'one country, two systems'

Eric Sautede's last day as a professor at the University of Saint Joseph was July 11. Bill Chou Kwok-ping, a political scientist at the University of Macau, is waiting to be told when a 24-day suspension without pay comes into force. Emilie Tran, dean of Saint Joseph's faculty of administration and leadership, has been demoted.

Their professional circumstances, made public recently, have sparked outrage among students, alumni and their fellow academics who fear that unprecedented censorship is taking place in Macau's universities. The former Portuguese enclave has long enjoyed freedom of expression in all sectors.

"A few years ago I had told foreign friends, when it comes to academic freedom in Macau, it's not so much a problem of no freedom but not using that freedom to the full," said Martin Chung, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University and a former lecturer at Saint Joseph University. "I wouldn't say that now."

At the end of June, a student at the University of Macau, holding a banner with the message "Support scholars who speak out. Please Stop Persecution of Scholars", was forcibly removed from the university's congregation ceremony.

Weng Kei-to, 22, said her main motivation for protesting was that she had heard several professors from different universities were under pressure. "I wanted to support my teachers to speak out," she said. "I hope that my school and the government defend our freedom of expression and academic freedom."

After the incident, Sautede's dismissal and Chou's suspension came to light in the Macau press.

Sautede's firing was the first time since the 1999 handover that a scholar in Macau had been openly dismissed for expressing his political views. The French professor of politics and political commentator, who had taught at the university for seven years, had been vocal in interviews and in his column for the English-language Macau Daily Times. In one of his latest columns, Sautede reflected on the June 4 vigil in Macau, which had an unprecedented turnout of 2,000 people. "It is unquestionable that [it] appears, if not yet as a turning point, at least as a landmark," he wrote.