Chinese dissident-lawyer Chen Guangcheng Sunday released a statement saying that he was being forced out from his fellowship at the New York University due to pressure from the Chinese government, allegedly in retaliation of his outspoken advocacy for human rights in China.
Chen, the blind self-taught Chinese lawyer, who was given the fellowship after his dramatic escape from his house arrest in the Shandong countryside to the U.S. embassy in China and later to the United States said that the university was pushing him out in fear of harming its relationship with the Chinese communist regime.
"As early as last fall, in August and September, the Chinese Communist Party already began to use all sorts of means to exert enormous pressure on NYU. It was such that after we had been in the United States just three to four months, NYU was already starting to discuss our departure with us," said Chen Guangcheng in the statement.
"The work of the Chinese Communists within academic circles in the United States is far greater than what people imagine, and some scholars have no option but to restrict themselves," said Chen in the press statement.
"Academic independence and academic freedom in the United States are now being greatly threatened by a dictatorship," said the prominent Chinese dissident-lawyer in the statement.
Chen's statement comes days after rumors that he was being forced from the university; however, the university quickly denied China's involvement in the decision saying his fellowship has come to an end and it has nothing to do with the Beijing government.
The university said that it had only guaranteed him and his family one year of study "to get their feet on the ground."
"We could not see beyond one year at that point, but I have always made clear, and the university authorities agreed, that our US-Asia Law Institute would allow him to stay beyond one year until a better, more permanent, opportunity arose," said Chen's professor and mentor, Jerome Cohen.
The Chinese lawyer was initially asked to leave by the end of June but later the deadline was extended till July 15.
