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The university press, which describes itself as the oldest publishing house in the world, had admitted to blocking online access in China to academic works on Tiananmen Square, the Cultural Revolution and Tibet.

The University of Cambridge said in a statement on Monday that its academic leadership and the publisher had agreed to reinstate the blocked content "with immediate effect" to "uphold the principle of academic freedom."

The censored academic articles appeared in the highly regarded journal China Quarterly. Its editor, Tim Pringle, said the reversal followed a "justifiably intense reaction from the global academic community and beyond."

"Access to published materials of the highest quality is a core component of scholarly research," he said in a statement on Monday. "It is not the role of respected global publishing houses ... to hinder such access."

The decision to censor the articles drew condemnation from academics around the world.

It represented "a craven, shameful and destructive concession" to the Chinese government's "growing censorship regime," Georgetown University professor James Millward wrote in an open letter published over the weekend.

By Monday, an online petition threatening a boycott of the publisher and its journals had gathered hundreds of signatures.

Related: Facebook finds a way into China

The not-for-profit publisher had defended its action as necessary to ensure that China doesn't block "entire collections of content." It said it would never proactively censor its own content.

But many prominent academics blasted the move.

"Chinese students and scholars reading a censored version of The China Quarterly will encounter only historical facts and scholarly analyses approved by political authorities," Greg Distelhorst of MIT and Jessica Chen Weiss of Cornell wrote in a letter to Cambridge University Press.

"This censored history of China will literally bear the seal of Cambridge University," they said.

The Cambridge press, which has been operating since the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in the 16th century, has run into a challenge faced by other global publishers: obey China's censors or be locked out of its giant market.

Related: Apple's Tim Cook hopes China will ease VPN restrictions

Foreign authors who wish to publish books in China must allow their works to be altered by censors. Top news organizations like The New York Times have had their websites blocked in China for years after publishing articles that upset the ruling Communist Party.

"Western institutions have the freedom to choose," said an English-language opinion article published Sunday by Global Times, a provocative but state-sanctioned Chinese tabloid. "If they don't like the Chinese way, they can stop engaging with us. If they think China's internet market is so important that they can't miss out, they need to respect Chinese law and adapt to the Chinese way."

China's General Administration of Press and Publication, a regulatory body, didn't respond to requests for comment Monday.

Related: Banned! 11 things you won't find in China

Submitting to Beijing's demands was "a misguided, if understandable, economic decision that does harm to the Press' reputation and integrity," said Jonathan Sullivan, director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham.

"This is not the first time Beijing has leveraged the economic power of the Chinese market for political gains," he wrote in a blog post. "The fear is that it won't be the last time that Western academia is the target."

-- Serena Dong contributed to this report.

CNNMoney (London) First published August 21, 2017: 1:12 PM ET

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World's oldest publisher reverses 'shameful' China censorship - CNNMoney

YouTube has suspended his account allegedly because he violated their terms of use; but really, he suspects, for the crime of being a Trump supporter who speaks unpalatable truths about leftist evils.

If youre unfamiliar with Thomas Wictor, youre missing a treat. Hes a Venezuelan-born recluse with a rich and varied past who, besides being the worlds greatest (and only) expert on World War I flamethrowers, also happens to produce some of the most fascinating Twitter threads and social media video commentary you will ever see on subjects ranging from Antifa to Pallywood to whats really going on in Syria and Iraq.

Some of his output is so kooky and recondite that, quite possibly, it strays into the realm of conspiracy theory.

But with Wictor you can never be quite sure because his exposition is so thorough and well-documented.

One of his specialties is forensic video analysis. This is how I first came across him, a few years back, when I wrote my first Breitbart News story based on his research. It concerned the four Palestinian boys supposedly blown up on a beach by Israeli artillery during the last Gaza conflict but really, or so Wictor claimed, murdered by Hamas who then exploited the dead children for propaganda purposes.

More recently he has attracted a big following on Twitter thanks to his epic threads which examine the truth behind various news stories, especially ones relating either to the Middle East or Antifas domestic terrorism.

This, he believes, is what got him into trouble with the lefts political correctness sentinels.

He told me:

I was able to prove at least three attempted murders by Antifa at Berkeley on April 15, 2017. In the video above [now deleted by YouTube], the Antifa member used a Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife.

The Fairbairn-Sykes is a double-edged stabbing weapon. It produces deep wounds that bleed heavily, making it hard to save the victim. It was only incompetence on the part of Antifa and sheer luck that the free-speech supporter didnt die. The Antifa member stabbed four times. Thats attempted murder in the first degree.

The reason I came to the attention of Google was that Donald Trump Jr retweeted me. After that, my YouTube account came under almost daily assault until it was terminated.

On Twitter, I support Jews, Shia Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Christians, blacks, whites I see no religion or color. My blog posts were all technical.

The last detail is important because, according to Googles explanations as to why his YouTube account was first closed temporarily then permanently, his videos had inappropriate content.

Eventually, Wictors account was killed with death-by-faceless-bureaucracy. (Ive included the full private thread of Wictors communication with me because its soclassically Thomas Wictor)

This is the internets loss and reflects ill on both YouTube and Google.

Happily, his Twitter threads are still operative and todays is another classic. It concerns a story aboutState Rep. Beth Fukumoto (D-Hawaii) and her claim reported in Huffington Post that she receivedracistcorrespondence from a Trump supporter.

Wictor has strong suspicions that it is a hoax because, using photos of the letter and envelope from the internet, he has subjected the correspondence to forensic analysis.

Read the full thread to find out why he thinks it is fake. Its classic Wictor.

P.S. DO YOU WANT MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE DELIVERED RIGHT TO YOUR INBOX?SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY BREITBART NEWSLETTER.

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Delingpole: Thomas Wictor Is the Latest Victim of Google Censorship - Breitbart News

Recent decisions by technology companies, especially upstream infrastructure technology companies, to drop neo-Nazis as customers have captured public attentionand for good reason. The content being blocked is vile and horrific, there is growing concern about hate groups across the country, and the nation is focused on issues of racism and protest.

But this is a dangerous moment for Internet expression and the power of private platforms that host much of the speech on the Internet. People cheering for companies who have censored content in recent weeks may soon find the same tactic used against causes they love. We must be careful about what we are asking these companies to do and carefully review the processes they use to do it. A look at previous examples that EFF has handled in the past 10+ years can help demonstrate why we are so concerned.

This isnt just a slippery slope fear about potential future harm. Complaints to various kinds of intermediaries have been occurring for over a decade. Its clear that Internet technology companiesespecially those further upstream like domain name registrars are simply not equipped or competent to distinguish between good complaints and bad in the U.S. much less around the world. They also have no strong mechanisms for allowing due process or correcting mistakes. Instead they merely react to where the pressure is greatest or where their business interests lie.

Here are just a few cases EFF has handled or helped from the last decade where complaints went upstream to website hosts and DNS providers, impacting activist groups specifically. And this is not to mention the many times direct user platforms like Facebook and Twitter have censored content from artists, activists, and others.

Youll notice that complainers in these cases are powerful corporations. Thats not a coincidence. Large companies have the time, money, and scary lawyers to pressure intermediaries to do their biddingsomething smaller communities rarely have.

The story gets much more frightening when governments enter the conversation. All of the major technology companies publish transparency reports documenting the many efforts made by governments around the world to require the companies to take down their customers speech.[1]

China ties the domain name system to tracking systems and censorship. Russia-backed groups flag Ukrainian speech, Chinese groups flag Tibetan speech, Israeli groups flag Palestinian speech, just to name a few. Every state has some reason to try to bend the core intermediaries to their agenda, which is why EFF along with a number of international organizations created the Manila Principlesto set out the basic rules for intermediaries to follow when responding to these governmental pressures. Those concerned about the position of the current U.S. government with regard to Black Lives Matter, Antifa groups, and similar left-leaning communities should take note: efforts to urge the current U.S. government to treat them as hate groups have already begun.

Will the Internet remain a place where small, marginalized voices get heard? For every tech CEO now worried about neo-Nazis there are hundreds of decisions made to silence voices that are made outside of public scrutiny with no transparency into decision-making or easy ways to get mistakes corrected. We understand the impulse to cheer any decisions to stand up against horrific speech, but if we embrace upstream intermediary censorship, it may very well come back to haunt us.

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10+ Years of Activists Silenced: Internet Intermediaries' Long History of Censorship - EFF

Kirill Serebrennikov was arrested in St. Petersburg on Tuesday. He was later charged with fraud, Interfax news agency reported, citing Russia's investigative committee.

The committee, which investigates high-profile crimes, said Serebrennikov is accused of embezzling more than $1.2 million of government funds between 2011 and 2014, by taking money allocated for a theatrical project.

The 47-year-old creative director of progressive theater Gogol Center in Moscow has denied wrongdoing.

Serebrennikov faces a hearing on Wednesday, where he will learn whether he will await trial in prison or under house arrest. Supporters plan to gather in protest outside the city center court at midday during that appearance.

Reaction within Russia's cultural community was swift and outraged, with many expressing fears of a clampdown.

Andrey Saveliev, a prominent director and longtime colleague and friend of Serebrennikov, told CNN that people felt Serebrennikov was targeted because of his ''inconvenient and ideologically nonconforming'' work.

"Perhaps, if his art did not cause such a stir every time and did not cause such a stormy reaction, what is happening now would not be interpreted as an act that presumably has political reasons behind it,'' Saveliev said.

Opposition news site Meduza published an open letter in support of the director and condemning what it called a ''fabricated case," comparing his case and specific charges to that of dissidents who were persecuted during Soviet times.

Referring to the estimated 4 million people prosecuted for counter-revolutionary activities under Article 58 of the Soviet penal code, the editorial said: 'We know that the article on fraud is nothing better than the infamous Article 58, it is the same effective and universal tool for punishing people, except no one gets shot.''

One of Russia's most famous actresses, Liya Akhedzhakova, wrote on her social media account that the situation was reminiscent of the dark days of those purges, likening Serebrennikov to theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold, victim of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's purges.

Meyerhold was executed in 1940 after his experimental works were deemed anti-Soviet.

Investigative committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said authorities have substantial evidence against Serebrennikov, saying ''his guilt in committing large-scale fraud is confirmed by the testimonies of witnesses, the results of investigative activity, financial documents obtained during the investigation and other evidence.''

Long considered one of Russia's most gifted talents, Serebrennikov is known for his controversial productions and anti-censorship stance.

He was also an outspoken supporter of artistic freedom in Russia even as socially conservative forces gathered strength.

In 2015, he defended a colleague whose opera was canceled and investigated for desecrating religious objects, criticizing conservatives in an open letter.

''Theater is a territory of freedom. If they wish to avoid being annoyed, offended, embarrassed or angry, let them sit in churches,'' Serebrennikov wrote.

His film "The Student," which won an award at the Cannes festival last year, explored the blurring of the lines between religion and state through a portrait of the growing fanaticism of a schoolboy.

Last month the Bolshoi Theatre canceled his ballet about dancer Rudolf Nureyev days before it opened. The legendary institution denied at the time that the reason was the portrayal of Nureyev's gay relationships and battle with AIDS, both controversial subjects in the biography of the Russian cultural icon and contemporary Russia.

On Tuesday, the director of the Bolshoi, Vladimir Urin, said Serebrennikov was a ''great artist'' and ''very gifted and talented.''

In May, Urin was one of a group of cultural figures who signed a letter in support of Serebrennikov, which was then delivered personally to Russian President Vladimir Putin as he was awarding one of them with a state medal.

Serebrennikov was initially questioned in May as a witness in an embezzlement case, according to state news agency Tass.

He was released at the time but two colleagues were remanded in custody. One has reportedly been charged and testified against Serebrennikov.

CNN's Darya Tarasova contributed to this report.

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Russian theater and film director arrested - CNN

Aerial View of Cambridge city centre taken from St. John's College.Andrew ParsonsPA Images/Getty Images

Following criticism from academics, Cambridge University Press has reversed its decision to self-censor a journal distributed in China that referenced topics deemed too sensitive.

The U.K.-based publisher said in a statement Monday that it had "reluctantly" agreed to remove 315 articles from copies of its journal The China Quarterly that were to be distributed in the country, following a "clear order" from the importer, but that it had since decided to reinstate the blocked content, which reportedly included topics such as the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the Cultural Revolution, Tibet and Taiwan.

Cambridge University Press, founded in 1534, is the oldest publishing house in the world, and has for centuries maintained a reputation of scholarly excellence. It's decision to remove the content provoked backlash from academics around the world. In an open letter published on Medium Sunday, Georgetown University professor James Millward called the move a "craven, shameful and destructive concession to the PRCs growing censorship regime ."

Upon backing down, the publisher said the block had been a temporary measure pending discussions with University of Cambridge's academic leadership and a scheduled meeting with the Chinese importer in Beijing.

Read More: China Just Earned Its Worst Ever Score in an Annual Global Press Freedom Survey

"Academic freedom is the overriding principle on which the University of Cambridge is based," Cambridge University Press said in its statement. "Therefore, while this temporary decision was taken in order to protect short-term access in China to the vast majority of the Presss journal articles, the Universitys academic leadership and the Press have agreed to reinstate the blocked content, with immediate effect, so as to uphold the principle of academic freedom on which the Universitys work is founded."

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A Top Publisher Bowed to China's Censors. Then it Bowed to Outraged Academics - TIME