Chinese professor known for challenging the party leadership sacked by university
- Xu Zhangrun was formally notified of his dismissal by Tsinghua University, which said he had violated rules banning academics from undermining the Communist Party
- The outspoken legal scholar was recently detained by police for visiting prostitutes – charges his friends say were invented to discredit him
An outspoken Chinese law professor who is well known for publicly challenging the party leadership has been formally notified that he has been fired for his writings.
The notification, dated on Wednesday, was sent to Xu Zhangrun by courier on Saturday, according to a friend who requested anonymity for fear of retribution.
Tsinghua University, where Xu, 57 has worked for 20 years, said it made the decision after a meeting on July 10.
Xu, a prominent legal scholar, is one of the very few academics to have publicly challenged the party leadership in recent years in a number of essays published online in China and overseas.
“We have verified that Xu Zhangrun has published many essays since July 2018 and it is a serious violation of the ‘10 standards of professional conduct for teachers in tertiary institutes in the new era’,” the notification read.
The guidelines, issued by the Ministry of Education in 2018, said teachers would be fired or punished if they said or did anything that undermines the authority of the Communist Party or violated the directions and policies of the party.