Freedom of Speech

Created
Tue, 20/12/2022 - 02:23
According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), Wu Yanan, a philosophy lecturer at Nankai University in Tianjin, China, was taken by authorities under false pretenses and confined in a psychiatric institution for supporting anti-lockdown protestors. The officials reportedly claimed that they were taking Wu to get a COVID-19 test. However, RFA reports, she had on social media “accused the university authorities of betraying the ideals of its founder Zhang Boling by clamping down on the widespread protests” by students against strict, government-imposed lockdowns. RFA reports: Wang Qiang, a person familiar with the incident, said Wu had been a vocal supporter of the “white paper” protests. “There were some spontaneous memorials activities and blank paper protests on our university campus after the Urumqi fire [a fatal lockdown fire in Xinjiang’s regional capital Urumqi whose victimes were unable to escape the blaze because they had been locked into their own apartment building] and students who took part were hauled in to ‘drink tea’,” a euphemism for being questioned by the authorities, Wang said.