VU Human Rights Centre suspends activities
The Cross Cultural Human Rights Centre at the Free University Amsterdam (VU) has suspended its activities. Research must first show whether the independence of the Centre is at stake given funding from China.
Last week, NOS reported (in Dutch) that the Human Rights Centre is sponsored by a Chinese university. This led to a discussion about the independence of the Amsterdam centre given that universities in China have close ties with the political regime. The VU announced that it will run an investigation into the independence of the centre and it returned the subsidy from China in advance of the findings.
The Centre has emptied its website. A statement says that the Centre believes in the universality of human rights and that ‘inclusiveness and diversity’ are paramount in this area. It concludes that not all publications on the website were in line with these values. ‘This is reason enough to take a closer look at the website’, it said. It is not yet known when the investigation will be completed.
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