Xu Zhangrun was fired after criticizing President Xi Jinping.
Beijing:
A prominent Chinese lawyer who was arrested and then fired after criticizing President Xi Jinping hopes to clear his name by quashing a prostitution charge brought against him by police, his lawyer said on Wednesday.
Xu Zhangrun, a former constitutional law professor at prestigious Tsinghua University, was detained by police in Beijing in early July for nearly a week after being charged with soliciting prostitution while in the southwest city from Chengdu last December.
Xu hired human rights attorneys Mo Shaoping and his partner Shang Baojun on Tuesday night in an effort to quash the charge, Mo told Reuters.
“Professor Xu hired us because he rejects the fabricated prostitution charges supposedly bearing his name,” Mo said.
According to Mo, as proof of his crime, police from Qingyang District in Chengdu introduced a woman who said she had had sex with Xu. Xu claims he had never seen her before, Mo said.
Xu and his lawyers are still deciding on the exact course of action, Mo said. His options are to call in the Chengdu City Police or sue the district police, Mo said.
Neither Xu nor the Chengdu District Police could be immediately contacted for comment.
While Xu was detained, Tsinghua University in Beijing fired him for violating its code of ethics. He cited the prostitution case as well as various articles that Xu had published since July 2018, in an opinion seen by Reuters.
Xu, 57, rose to prominence in July 2018 for denouncing the removal of the two-term limit for the Chinese leader.
At the height of the coronavirus epidemic in China in February, Xu wrote an article calling for free speech. In May, he wrote an article accusing Xi of trying to bring the Cultural Revolution back to China.
Under Xi, China cracked down on dissent and tightened censorship.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
