A Beijing law professor who braided Chinese President Xi Jinping and the ruling Communist Party released on Sunday after six days of detention, his friends said.
Xu Zhangrun, a professor of constitutional law at the prestigious Tsinghua University, returned home Sunday morning, but remained under surveillance and wasted no time to speak publicly about what happened, one of his friends told Reuters, who refused to be identified.
Calls to Beijing police and Tsinghua University media broker we made comments were not answered on Sunday.
Xu, 57, was tested in July 2018 for denouncing the elimination of the two-term limit for the Chinese leader, allowing Xi to return to office beyond his current term.
According to a text message circulated among Xu’s friends and seen through Reuters, on Monday morning, he pulled out of his home in the suburbs of Beijing through more than 20 police officers, who searched his deception and confiscated his computer.
According to Xu’s friends, police told his wife that he was in custody for allegedly prostituting a vacation in Chengdu, but no fewer than two friends set aside the charge as murder of a character.
Since the 2018 article, Xu has written other reviews of the party. At the h8 of the coronavirus outbreak in China in February, he wrote calling for freedom of expression. More recently, in May, before China’s delayed annual parliamentary meeting, he wrote that he used Xi to hunt down and bring the Cultural Revolution to China. Under Xi, China suppressed dissent and increased censorship.
U.S. State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus said Tuesday that he was deeply concerned about Xu’s arrest by China and recommended Beijing release him.