Xu Zhangrun, a constitutional��law scholar at Tsinghua University, has been detained by Chinese authorities, according to reports.

Media sources cited online posts and Professor Xu’s friends, who said that more than a dozen police officers had removed the outspoken critic from his home, along with his computer and papers.����

Tsinghua did not respond to queries about��Professor Xu’s��current standing at the institution, when asked most��recently or in the spring,��when he was suspended��and put under investigation.��

Professor Xu has been in the authorities’ crosshairs since 2018-2019, when he continued publishing��essays critical of the government after he had been advised to stop. His commentary grew more pointed after Covid-19 began to spread.��

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In February, an essay by Professor Xu titled “Angry People are no Longer Afraid”��appeared in the China Digital Times, a website founded by Xiao Qiang, a research scientist��at the University of California, Berkeley. An English version of the essay, “Viral Alarm: When Fury Overcomes Fear”, was��, translated by Geremie Barmé.

According to Professor��Barmé’s introduction to that essay, Professor Xu “remained defiant” despite being removed from teaching duties in 2019.��

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Professor Xu��was also one of the signatories of��an open letter in February��calling on China to honour Li Wenliang , the late whistleblower physician who had warned of a��mysterious Sars-like disease but was not heeded by the authorities. Soon after, Professor Xu��was��placed under house arrest and suspended by Tsinghua.����

A translation of Professor Xu’s works,��Six Chapters from the 2018 Year of the Dog,��was to be published by a university press in Hong Kong earlier this year, but appears to��have been delayed.

joyce.lau@timeshighereducation.com��