NGOs fear tighter state curbs after university cuts links

Peking University severed ties last week with a high-profile women's rights advocacy group under its auspices, sending further chills through the mainland's NGO community, which fears a new era of tightened government control.

In a public notice dated March 25 on the university's website, the social sciences faculty announced it was 'cancelling' four research institutes set up under its name, and that any further actions carried out by them would have nothing to do with the university.

The four institutes include three from the law department - the Women's Legal Research and Services Centre, the Public Law Research Centre and the Constitution Research Centre - and one from the media department, the Finance News Research Centre.

The dean of social sciences, Cheng Yuzhui, told Beijing Youth Daily yesterday that the cancellations were just routine restructuring of the university's research institutes, removing 'some institutes that no longer suit the current trend'.

The Public Law Research Centre was an obsolete shell, having been renamed the Constitutional and Administrative Law Research Centre in 2002, according to the latter's chief, Professor Jiang Mingan . The Constitution Research Centre has not conducted any research in the past two years.

The Finance News Research Centre, with former Caijing editor Hu Shuli as one of its chief advisers, was once a high-profile institute.

But its chief, Xu Hong, confirmed that the 'cancelling' of the centre was due to the need to make way for a new multimedia research centre, Caing.com reported.