The VU has commissioned a committee to investigate the center. According to the committee, there are no indications “that individual researchers have had their views ‘bought’ or that self-censorship has taken place under pressure from Chinese financiers.” At the same time, there was not enough ‘openness and transparency’ about where the money for the center came from. The VU itself says it has been ‘insufficiently alert’.
A researcher from the center previously stated that the plight of the Uyghur Muslim minority in China is not too bad. According to observers and western countries, it is systematically suppressed by the government in China’s Xinjiang region. Human rights groups accuse Beijing of detaining more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslims, imposing forced labor and forcibly sterilizing women.
The VU says that the researcher’s statement falls under freedom of expression, but the university has distanced itself from it. “The whitewashing or even denial of the situation of the Uyghur Muslims is very inappropriate and does not in any way contribute positively to improving the plight of this population group,” explains Rector Magnificus Jeroen Geurts.
The VU also praises the role of the NOS. The journalists’ revelations have “contributed to accelerated awareness of the risks surrounding the unilateral financing of the center” and confirms “the value of an independent and free press, which can help us in different areas in society, in politics but certainly also within science holds up a mirror”, according to the university.