Recent attacks on Google email systems in China compromised the privacy of communications by human rights activists. We have been advocating for many years on behalf of Chinese academics and other professionals who peacefully protest government policy. Lately, peaceful expressions in China of almost any political views that the authorities characterize as subversive have been punished by long prison sentences.
Professor Wang Quing Ying, a professor of economics at Guangdong University of Technology's Huali College, has been forced to resign from his teaching position under pressure from school authorities. Professor Wang is a signer of Charter 08, which called on China to respect the requirements of its own constitution, of China's international obligations, and of basic human rights. During a recent outing with fellow dissidents, he wore a t-shirt bearing the slogan "One Party Dictatorship is a Disaster," leading to his firing.
On October 16, 2009, Sugian Intermediate People's Court in Jiangsu Province sentenced Professor Guo Quan, former Nanjing Normal University associate professor and former member of China Democratic League (one of the eight state-approved "democratic" parties) to ten years in prison for "subversion of state power." Between 2007 and 2008, Guo Quan published articles and an open letter on the Internet addressed to President Hu Jintao and Wu Bangguo, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.
Berlanty Azzim, a resident of Bethlehem, who says that she entered the West Bank on a valid visa in 2005, is a month away from completing her studies in business management at a West Bank university. At the end of October, she was stopped at a checkpoint by Israeli soldiers and deported to Gaza, on the grounds that as a holder of an identity card with a Gaza address she was in the West Bank illegally. The Israeli Supreme Court has upheld the army’s decision.
Dr. Reinaldo Di Polo, a physiologist, and Dr. Gioconda San Blas, a microbiologist, were distinguished scientists at the Centro de Biofisica y Bioquimica (IVIC) in Caracas.
On Monday, November 23, 2009, Huang Qui was sentenced to three years in prison for “illegal possession of state secrets” by the Chengdu Wuhou District Court, Sichuan Province, after being tried in a three-hour secret trial in August, 2008. Huang has been in detention since June, 2008. According to his wife, Zeng Li, his health has seriously deteriorated and he has been diagnosed with an abdominal aneurysm.
'Everyone Loses' When Boycotts Exclude a Country's Scholars
To the Editor:
Some academics in the United States and Canada are proposing a boycott of Israeli academics. And in Britain, the University and College Union, which has over 120,000 members, has voted to frame new resolutions to boycott Israeli academics that might overcome legal obstacles that stood in the way of similar measures in the past.

Dr. Mehmet Haberal, an internationally respected transplant surgeon and rector of Bashkent University, and Dr.
The Spanish Housing Ministry has disqualified Ariel University Center of Samaria from competing in the finals of the international competition between university architecture departments to design and build a self-sufficient house using solar power. The Ariel University Center reached the finals together with 20 other universities from around the world after two years of collaboration with the competition's management and the Spanish government.