20 January 2022
Hague, 20 ene (EFE).- The Free University of Amsterdam (VU – FUEMPLY) This Thursday suspended the reception of a controversial subsidy he received from China to finance an associated institute, The Intercultural Human Rights Center (Cchrc), After generating doubts about the academic freedom of employees when conducting their research.
La VU University (Name in Dutch) He admitted that in “China's combination of financing for human rights research, Some statements of media institute employees (International) and insufficient contextualization of the statements on the web (of public television), There is an understandable doubt about this independence ".
Warned that, For the VU, "Universal human rights and the independence of their researchers are unconditional fundamental values", So "it will take appropriate measures", including the suspension and refund of the Chinese subsidy received this year.
"Even the simple appearance of research dependence is unacceptable", He reiterated this faculty, one of the 14 public universities from Netherlands, partially funded by the Dutch government.
The reaction of the academic center came after yesterday the local press denounced that the CCHRC received in 2018, 2019 and 2020 an amount of between 250.000 and 300.000 euros from the University of Political Science and Rights of Chongqing, In southwest China, And during those years it was his only external financing to carry out his research on human rights.
Dutch education minister, Robbert Dijkgraaf, considered "urgent and sensible” that the university takes measures to protect “scientific and fundamental values such as academic freedom, integrity and independence ", especially when it comes to "universal values such as human rights".
