CAMBRIDGE U. PRESS TO RESTORE BLOCKED CONTENT

LONDON Cambridge University Press agreed Monday to restore more than 300 politically sensitive articles that had been removed from the publisher’s website in China at the behest of authorities.

Tim Pringle, editor of The China Quarterly, said the publisher agreed to repost the articles immediately. The action followed a petition circulating among academics calling on the university press to turn down censorship requests from the Chinese government.

“I am delighted by the support of the international academic community,” Pringle said.

Cambridge University Press said Friday that it had complied with a request to block certain articles from The China Quarterly within China. They touch on politically sensitive subjects, including the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the 196676 Cultural Revolution and the status of Tibet.

“Access to published materials of the highest quality is a core component of scholarly research,” Pringle wrote in a post on Twitter announcing the decision. “It is not the role of respected global publishing houses such as CUP to hinder such access.”

The university later confirmed the decision to restore the articles, saying they had been reluctant to block the material in the first place.

“Academic freedom is the overriding principle on which the University of Cambridge is based,” the press said in a statement on Twitter.