"My first response was confusion, Murphy said. The university told her that a combination of administrative issues meant they could no longer support her work. But further inquiries suggested the university was explicitly trading my academic freedom for access to the Chinese student market, Murphy said, which was really shocking. The university denies that the decision was based on commercial interests."
"Murphy's work focuses on Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim minority in China, being co-opted into forced labour programmes. The Chinese government rejects accusations of forced labour, and says that Uyghur work programmes are for poverty alleviation."
"In February, Sheffield Hallam University, home to the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (HKC), a leading research institution focused on human rights, ordered one of its best-known professors, Laura Murphy, to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China. The website for the Forced Labour Lab, Murphy's small team of researchers at the HKC, was taken down although several of the reports remain available in other, less visible parts of the university archive."
A leading UK human rights researcher, Laura Murphy, was ordered in February to stop investigating supply chains and forced labour linked to Uyghurs in China. The Forced Labour Lab website was removed, though several reports remain in less visible parts of the university archive. Murphy's research and colleagues' work informed western government and UN policies aimed at excluding goods made with forced labour. The Chinese government rejects forced labour allegations and frames work programmes as poverty alleviation. In October the university lifted the ban and apologised, while denying that commercial interests influenced the earlier decision.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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