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Students from Fudan University in Shanghai receive their graduation diploma in front of the statue of Mao in 2013. REUTERS / Aly Song

In Shanghai, students at Fudan University, one of the most prestigious in the country, are angry. This Wednesday, December 18, they challenged the changes to the internal regulations, which affect " freedom of thought " on campus.

From our correspondent in Beijing,

The images barely had time to go around social media when they were censored. And it's on Twitter that we hear them sing, these students from Fudan in Shanghai. The video lasts about ten seconds during which the students take up one of the school's hymns.

Video clip of protests against changes to charter removing 'free thinking' of Fudan University goes viral on Chinese social media before it is censored! #china #ChinaCensor #freethinking #fudan #FudaUniversity #chinazi # 复旦大学 # 学术 自由 #freedomacademy pic.twitter.com/OYLZq8yHmj

kyikyi (@dreamlhasa) December 18, 2019

The scene, which resembles a flashmob, would have taken place in the canteen of this campus regularly classified in the top 3 of the best educational establishments in the country. " Fudan shines like the sun and the moon, " says the song. A way for students to defend the reputation of this bastion of science and knowledge in China and the independence of the university, after further changes to the charter of their establishment Tuesday, December 17. Revisions riddled with references to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and in a language of wood worthy of the best Ming cabinets, including in particular, notes the South China Morning Post , " support for the leadership of the CCP " and " implementation of principles and policy of the CCP ”.

" Freedom to think "

According to the Bloomberg agency, the deletion of the terms " freedom of thought " from the internal regulations would have contributed to the uprising of amphis, already confronted with this type of modification in the past. In 2014, Fudan University in Shanghai, Beida University in the capital and Sun Yat-sen in Canton had already been invited to close ranks around the values ​​of Chinese socialism.

In accordance with a directive from the Ministry of Education, the university management thus undertakes to strengthen " ideological control " over students and teachers, by preparing them to face ideas from the West and " thoughts harmful ”to the CCP.

Shocked teachers

However, the latter must accept. The sling won part of the teachers on Wednesday. In a post on the Sina microblogging platform, spotted by the Wall Street Journal before it was suppressed by censorship, Qu Weiguo, professor in the department of foreign languages ​​at Fudan, says he is " very shocked " by these changes which, according to him, were made without consultation with university staff.

Same thing for Lu Xiaoping: " If we do not talk today about this challenge to our ethics, tomorrow we will no longer have the opportunity to do so, " said the vice-president of the School of Literature at the University of Nanjing, whose charter has also just been rewritten. The hashtag " modification of the charter of the University of Fudan " was seen more than 1.7 million times on Weibo this Wednesday, before being censored in the evening.