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A group of UMass Boston students, professors, and alumni as well as outside advocates are raising concerns about the Confucius Institute that operates on its campus, accusing it of promoting censorship abroad and undermining human rights.

The Chinese government oversees the center, one of more than 90 on campuses across the United States and abroad and one of two in the state.

Confucius Institutes use their foothold in prominent academic institutions to influence and steer academic discourse, the group said in a recent letter to interim chancellor Barry Mills, asking for a meeting to discuss their concerns.

The organizer of the objectors said she hopes to persuade the university to shut down the campus institute.

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The protest is part of a wave of opposition to these centers, which are advertised as tools for cultural exchange and Chinese languages education.

At the University of Massachusetts Boston, the protesters say they are concerned simply that an entity controlled by the communist Chinese government operates within the university. And, they say, they are worried that it recently helped to open similar centers in two local public high schools.

For several years, advocates for academic freedom have expressed alarm about Confucius centers. In 2009, they criticized North Carolina State University after it canceled a talk by the Dalai Lama, reportedly to avoid offending China, which funded a Confucius Institute at that school.

The letter to UMass said the Confucius centers shape public opinion on controversial issues such as Tibetan independence, Chinas relationship with Taiwan, and the Tiananmen Square massacre.

As a result of their presence on campus, whether through direct intervention, or pre-emptive self-censorship, important political and human rights issues are being silenced, the writers said.

A spokesman for the University of Massachusetts said in a statement that the center has contributed to the campus by providing Chinese languages and cultural appreciation programs.

We think the institute has filled the role envisioned when it was established in 2006, with the goal of advancing the mutual understanding of language and culture, said the statement from Bob Connolly.

The UMass center director, Baifeng Sun, declined to speak with the Globe. Gao Qing, executive director of the Confucius Institute US Center in Washington, D.C., which oversees institutes in the United States, said in an e-mail that the center is dedicated to promoting mutual understanding.

A great number of students, community members, and language teachers have been empowered by and benefited from our educational efforts, he wrote.

Unlike cultural institutes run by other foreign governments, such as the stand-alone LAlliance Franaise and Goethe-Institut, the Confucius Institutes are located on American campuses.

The center at UMass Boston offers non-credit Chinese languages and culture classes as well as grants for UMass students to study in China. The center also provides professional development programs for Chinese-language teachers in the region, sponsors a Chinese speech contest for high school students, and works to foster scholarly and business collaborations between China and the United States, according to a UMass spokesman. There is also an institute at Tufts University.

The UMass center operated with a budget of about half a million dollars last year, according to information from the university, including $100,000 from UMass and almost all of the remainder from the Chinese government, including the salary of five employees.

In 2013, UMass extended its original six-year agreement with the institute for another five years, according to a copy of the contract provided by the university.

Amid growing concerns about censorship and propaganda, the University of Chicago and Pennsylvania State University ended their partnerships with the Confucius Institute in 2014.

The center at Chicago closed after more than 100 professors signed a petition calling for the school to cut the center because it lacked control over hiring and training of teachers, according to the Wall Street Journal. When the school cut ties with the center, however, it did not cite academic freedom, instead saying that published remarks about the university by the leader of the Chinese governmental organization that oversees the institutes were incompatible with a continued equal partnership.

The school board of Toronto canceled a potential deal with a center the same year, and another Canadian university shut down its center after one of its teachers complained she was forced to hide her religious beliefs.

The UMass letter was signed by 17 people, including the president of the Boston Language Institute, the director of the Lam Rim Buddhist Center, and the chair of the international board of directors of Students for a Free Tibet, along with people affiliated with the university.

It was organized by Lhadon Tethong, the director of the Tibetan Action Institute, an advocacy organization.

This is the beginning of a campaign to get that Confucius Institute closed, Tethong said.

She said the group is horrified that the center has worked to open so-called Confucius Classrooms in two public schools, Brockton High School and Cambridge Rindge and Latin.

This is just one part of a very scary plan by the Chinese government, Tethong said.

In 2014, the American Association of University Professors published a study that found the centers function as an arm of the Chinese state and are allowed to ignore academic freedom.

The study recommended that Confucius Institutes be closed unless college administrators can ensure total control over academic matters.

Hank Reichman, who chairs a committee on academic freedom and tenure for the association, said the group hoped the study would prompt faculty on individual campuses to ask questions of their administrations.

Whats unusual about the Confucius Institute is this tendency where they provide the faculty, where they seem to have a say-so in curriculum, he said. Thats what is potentially really bothersome.

Michael Hartt, a music professor at UMass Boston, said he signed the letter because he is concerned about Chinese human rights issues that he worked on with Amnesty International.

Its really out of character with the kind of openness and free expression of ideas that one expects of an urban college like UMass Boston, he said.

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Chinese institute at UMass Boston accused of promoting ...

In Japan, Article 21 of the Japanese Constitution guarantees freedom of expression and prohibits formal censorship. What censorship does exist is often carried out through Article 175 of the Criminal Code of Japan. Historically the law has been interpreted in different waysrecently it has been interpreted to mean that all pornography must be at least partly censored; however, there have been very few arrests based on this law.[1]

As publishing became more popular in the Edo Period, the Tokugawa shogunate began to turn to censorship. Initial targets included Christianity, criticism of the shogunate, and information on the activities of the Tokugawa clan. With the Kansei Reforms, any material deemed to be disturbing the traditional way of life, as well as luxury publications came under scrutiny. Under the Temp Reforms, printing blocks of erotic literature, as well as the novels of Tamenaga Shunsui and Tanehiko Rytei were among those seized.

After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, which marked a major political shift in Japan, the government began heavy censorship of Western ideas, pornography and any political writings critical of the Emperor of Japan and government, wanting to control the spread of information. Censorship of materials increased from this point, often using ongoing wars to increase police powers and penalties. In 1928, the death penalty was added to the list of punishments deemed acceptable for certain violations. This continued, eventually to the Information and Propaganda Department (, Jhbu) being elevated to the Information Bureau (, Jh Kyoku) in 1940, which consolidated the previously separate information departments from the Army, Navy and Foreign Ministry under the aegis of the Home Ministry. The new Bureau had complete control over all news, advertising and public events. The following year revision of the National Mobilization Law (, Kokka Sdin H) eliminated freedom of the press entirely, doing things such as forcing papers in each prefecture to either merge into one paper or cease publication, with all articles by the paper having to be screened by government censors before they could be published.

After the surrender of Japan in 1945, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers abolished all forms of censorship and controls on Freedom of Speech, which was also integrated into Article 21 of the 1947 Constitution of Japan. However, press censorship remained a reality in the post-war era, especially in matters of pornography, and in political matters deemed subversive by the American government during the occupation of Japan.

According to Donald Keene:

Not only did Occupation censorship forbid criticism of the United States or other Allied nations, but the mention of censorship itself was forbidden. This means, as Donald Keene observes, that for some producers of texts "the Occupation censorship was even more exasperating than Japanese military censorship had been because it insisted that all traces of censorship be concealed. This meant that articles had to be rewritten in full, rather than merely submitting XXs for the offending phrases."

Due to the current interpretation of Article 175 of the Criminal Code of Japan, which forbids distributing "indecent" materials, it is believed that most pornography in Japan must be at least partially censored. The primary means is to put a digital mosaic over genitalia. There have, however, been very few arrests for violations of this law.[1]

The most recent trial based on this law, the first in 20 years, was the conviction of Suwa Yuuji in January 2004 for his hentai manga Misshitsu. He was originally fined 500,000 yen (about 4,900 USD) and avoided jail time by pleading guilty. When he appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Japan on arguments that the manga was not as indecent and explicit as much material on the Internet and that Article 175 violated the Japanese Constitution's protection of freedom of expression, the Court upheld the ruling and the fine was tripled to 1.5 million yen.[citation needed]

After Yuuji's conviction, a number of bookstores and chains removed their adults-only section. Their motivation has been attributed to chilling effect of the outcome.[3]

In July 2013, three people were arrested for selling "obscene images" with "insufficient censoring."[4][5] They later plead guilty in December 2013.[6]

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Censorship in Japan - Wikipedia

Officials of Guinea Bissaus public television channel, (TGB) have announced to the Information Directorate and to the Government that they will no longer accept the rising spate of news censorship in any shape or form.

Francisco Indeque, president of the TGB workers union, presented a petition signed by 88 out of the 141 employees of the station to the director of the countrys only television station.

The signatories bemoaned interference in the discharge of their professional duties and said they will no longer accept the status quo. A copy of the petition was also delivered to the Minister of Social Communication, Victor Pereira.

Of the 141 television employees, 88 have signed the petition. From now on we will not allow censorship of the work of any entity, be it political or social.

Of the 141 television employees, 88 have signed the petition. From now on we will not allow censorship of the work of any entity, be it political or social, noted Francisco Indeque.

According to him, since the creation of TGB in 1989, there has never been so much censorship as now.

TV officials even go to the studio behind the journalist to coerce him into the pieces of news they should cut, Indeque said, stressing that journalists had decided to say no more censorship. Efforts to contact TGBs management has so far proven futile.

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Guinea Bissau state TV employees kick against rising govt censorship - africanews

Tucker Carlson slammed Google's apparent censorship of content not politically agreeable to them company.

"Google seems to be letting politics dictate who is allowed to make money from their platform," Tucker said on his show Thursday.

Talk show hostDave Rubin claimed YouTube financially censored his videos when the platform "demonetized" them.

"It appears at least that there's some pretty shady stuff going on," the host of "The Rubin Report" told Tucker.

The mammoth video platform put out a statement claiming that 90 percent of Rubin's videos were monetized and those that weren't contained adult topics, which are objectionable to some advertisers.

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Rubin disputed this, saying that episodes of his "Larry King-esque" show with no sensitive content were demonetized.

"Unfortunately the lack of transparency there, it took me about two years to get on the phone with them," Rubin said. "I finally did about two weeks ago and didn't really get any answers."

"It sounds ominous," Tucker said. "Somebody needs to keep track of what Google is doing."

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Tucker Warns About 'Ominous' Google Censorship of Political Content - Fox News Insider

Ng Han Guan/AP ImagesA billboard showing Chinese President Xi Jinping with the slogan, To exactly solve the problem of corruption, we must hit both flies and tigers, Gujiao, China, February 2015

Authoritarians, in China and elsewhere, normally have preferred to dress their authoritarianism up in pretty clothes. Lenin called the version of dictatorship he invented in 1921 democratic centralism, but it became clear, especially after Stalin and Mao inherited the system, that centralism, not democracy, was the point. More recent examples of prettifying include The Republic of Zimbabwe, The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, and several others. What would be wrong with plainer labels? The Authoritarian State of Zimbabwe? The Shining Dictatorship of Korea? That dictators avoid candidly describing their regimes shows that, at least in their use of words, they acknowledge the superiority of freedom and democracy.

Such pretenses have been useful to autocracies not just internationally but within their regimes as well, for domestic control. In 1979, I did a series of interviews with groups of Chinese writers and literary editors as part of a research project. This was only a few years after Mao had died, the government had arranged the interviews, and the atmosphere was stiff. The interviewees knew that others in their group were observing them. I was struck by how often, one after another, they used the phrase in my personal view, only to follow it with anodyne statements like, Dengs policy of The Four Modernizations is best for the development of Chinese socialism. Why did they say in my personal view? Perhaps so that, in case they did say something wrong, they could not be accused of misleading a foreigner about state policy. More likely, though, I think it was to conform to the regimes fiction that Chinese intellectuals were all free to express their individual viewseven though the expressed views were boilerplate. The regimes unvarying message to writers and editors was, You are entirely free to agree with us, and they were obliging.

People who did not conform were penalized, but the penalties were dissociated from the offenses so that the pretense of free speech could be maintained. An offender might be denied a salary increase, a housing allotment, or a permission to travel that otherwise should have been granted. In common parlance it was said that people punished in this way were being made to wear small shoesbe hobbled in daily life. When no reasons were givennot even pretextsthey were wearing small glass shoes.

The art of controlling speech while avoiding the appearance of doing so has lasted through the ensuing decades. In the 2000s, explicit instructions went out to provincial officials that they avoid putting any censorship or blacklisting into writing. To kill an article, officials should get on the telephone and instruct editors orally.

Similarly, serious speech-crime offenderspeople being sent to prison for yearswere charged under face-saving euphemisms: tax evasion, fraud, even blocking traffic, or simply picking quarrels. The most fearful charge, inciting subversion of the state, which is reserved for extreme cases, is the only one that comes close to saying what is actually happening.

Though euphemisms continue to be useful to Chinas rulers, it has now become increasingly obvious that their use is declining. In the era of Xi Jinping, repression is often stated baldly, even proudly. Deng Xiaoping had counseled in 1992 that the Communist Party should, for the time being, hide its strength and prepare in the shadows. It appears that Xi has decided that it is time to step out of the shadows.

In 2013, his governments Document Nine warned Party members about the dangers of universal values, Western-style journalism, civil society, and other such ideas. Document Nine was technically classified, but it was distributed within the Party to millions of people and eventually was leaked outside the Party. In July 2015, a nationwide crackdown on human rights lawyers was similarly bald. Face-saving references to the lawyers as thugs or swindlers hardly mattered; the real message, which everyone understood, was: Here comes the Partys power.

Earlier this year, I saw a standard contract that a major Beijing publisher uses with its authors and that no doubt reflects practice all across China. Provision Two of the contract lists the items to be censored: any language that violates the honor or interests of the state, harms national unity, leaks state secrets, insults the nations outstanding cultural traditions, and so on; a catch-all category at the end says, or that violates other regulations. Provision Five spells out who will decide which words in a text are to be censored:

Publisher has the right, in accordance with the publishing laws and regulations of the State, to make deletions, revisions, and additions to the Work. If changes are major, Publisher should consult with Author to obtain agreement. If Author refuses to revise or, after repeated revisions, has failed to satisfy Provision Two of this agreement, Publisher has the right to cancel the contract.

If ten years earlier political censorship was done by telephone, now it is out on the table, in writing.

Editors at the Chinese online magazine Caixin (wealth anew) saw an essay I had written in memory of my beloved first-year Chinese language teacher at Harvard in 1963; they wanted to publish it but said they would have to strike two sentences in which she referred to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. They did not want to do it but said they had to: Such words are forbidden and there is not the slightest room to negotiate. The piece was published elsewhere.

Beijings aggressive new censorship policies reached the West on August 18, when Cambridge University Press acknowledged that it had bowed to a request from the Chinese government and deleted off its Chinese website 315 articles from the China Quarterly, a distinguished academic journal that Cambridge publishes. The regimes purpose in this demand was not to irritate the West but to narrow the intellectual horizons of people inside China. Still, an immediate and loud protest from Western academics turned the issue into something of an East-West confrontation (and eventually led Cambridge University Press to reverse its decision). In its response, Beijing continued with its new bluntness. The Global Times, which hews reliably to the Party line, wrote:

Its no big deal if a few barely-read China Quarterly articles cannot be found on Chinas Internet. The real issue is that the fundamental principles of the two sides are in conflict, and the question is: Whose principles are a better fit for todays world? This is not a matter of each to his or her own; it is a contest of strength. In the end time will tell whos right and whos wrong.

The Global Times here treats the China Quarterly issue as a small matter, important only as a symptom of a much broader struggle over what kinds of states and societies are right for the world in the twenty-first century. On this point I agree with the Global Times. That larger struggle is indeed the main issue. It has been on the minds of the men who rule in Beijing for a long time, at least as early as Deng Xiaopings advice in 1992. From this perspective, the China Quarterly troubles could be viewed as good news: they might awaken a nave West to what is really going on.

Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who died recently in Chinese imprisonment, was not allowed to speak or write to the outside world from 2008 until his death, so we dont know what he thought about the Xi Jinping clampdown. But in a 2006 essay he reflected on how the Communist dictatorship led his country during the Cultural Revolution into a hysterical frenzy that ended in disaster. Comparing it to the virulent nationalism of current times, he wrote:

If the Communists succeed once again in leading China down a disastrously mistaken historical road, the results will not only be another catastrophe for the Chinese people but likely also a disaster for the spread of liberal democracy in the world.

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Beijing's Bold New Censorship - The New York Review of Books