VU Amsterdam human rights center to be closed after critical report
NOS News††Amended
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Robert Chesal
editor Abroad
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Robert Chesal
editor Abroad
The China Human Rights Institute of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) will be definitively abolished. The VU takes this step to a critical report by external researchers.
The Cross Cultural Human Rights Center (CCHRC) of the VU was discredited in January this year when the NOS was unveiled, which was worn by a Chinese university. Center staff have been to China several times, often speaking publicly for China’s human rights policy.
After this report, the Vrije Universiteit announced that it would no longer accept Chinese funding for the CCHRC. Shortly afterwards, the university suspended all activities of the human rights institute and had the institute’s academic independence assessed by an external committee. That research report was put online this evening and is highly critical of both the CCHRC and the VU.
Vulnerable to abuse by China
The committee, led by former Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker of Leiden University, finds abuse by China in the investigation of the human rights institute. “used by the Chinese government to mold its own human rights policies that seem more in line with global human rights debates”. According to the commission, this could “lead to a legitimacy and preservation of the human rights policy of an autocratic regime”.
The committee has “serious reservations” about the scientific method used by the CCHRC for research in China receptor approach† The committee finds it “extremely doubtful” that its application “in centrally-led states like China, with little room for divergent purposes” can lead to scientifically sound responses.
Price the NOS
Rector Magnificus Jeroen Geurts of the VU tells the NOS that he is shocked by “the hard nuts that are cracked in the report about the methodology of the center and the statements of the employees. That is why we have decided, in consultation with the faculties, to close the center.”
The VU praises the role of the NOS. The journalists’ revelations have “contributed to accelerated future risks surrounding the unilateral financing of the center” and that “the value of an independent and free press, which gives us a lot of value in different areas in society, in politics but certainly also within science holds up a mirror,” according to the university.
The CCHRC researchers are very close to the president of China with their publications and statements.
The commission of inquiry that the VU should have made a better estimate of the risks of unilateral financing by a Chinese university. In addition, the committee points out that the researchers of the CCHRC and responsible administrators of the faculty have not been open about financing from China. They have not reported this on their websites or in publications. The Stolker Committee points out that this is contrary to the Dutch code of conduct for scientific integrity.
Education Minister Dijkgraaf is right that the VU is critical of financing from international sources and understands that the university has decided to close the center after the investigation. “This case shows once again the importance of carefully and consciously entering into international cooperation. I have said that many times before and I will continue to do so.”
‘Not bought’
To be in a written response from the CCHRC with the outcome of the report. They write that they are pleased that there is “no evidence that individual researchers” from the center “have let the Chinese partner university ‘buy’ them from self-censorship under pressure from this university”.
However, that is not exactly what the Stolker Committee concludes. The report says the Commission has “find no evidence” of that kind of bribery pressure. In addition, the Committee finds that behavior can be very well proven. The committee also explicitly does not require access to the mailboxes of CCHRC researchers of “versions of publications from personal file folders”.
The Stolker Committee devotes a great deal of attention to publications and statements by director Tom Zwart and other researchers at the center. “The Center’s researchers are closely involved in their publications and other public statements against the political policies of the President of China,” the committee writes.
The report makes short shrift of a number of Zwart’s claims, including that China complies with the requirements of international law and operates within the universal human rights framework. The committee writes that Zwart’s ideas give the impression “strongly linked to the dominant political Chinese paradigm.”
Director Tom Zwart says he does not agree with the contents of the report about the methodology of his research. “The committee tells us how to conduct our research in China. But they themselves have no research experience in China, and we have a total of 70 years.” Zwart tells NOS that the CCHRC is satisfied with the decision of the VU to close the center. “If they put an end to it, we’ll go elsewhere.”