Scourge of China's academic fakes attacked

Beijing police have arrested four men, including a professor, over a hammer attack on China's top "science cop", a whistle-blower famed for exposing religious fakes, academic charlatans and bogus researchers.


Fang Zhouzi was attacked last month, sparking immediate suspicions of a link with his "New Thread" website, which has built up a powerful reputation for highlighting academic fraud. "I will not stop battling pseudoscience," Mr Fang said after the attack, although he said he would be more cautious about his own safety in future.

The attackers temporarily blinded Mr Fang with pepper spray then hit him on the back with a hammer in the street as he returned home from a television interview on 29 August. He suffered minor injuries in the attack and has fully recovered. Police identified three men in early September using surveillance video and witnesses. The investigation was part of another inquiry into an attack on an investigative journalist, Fang Xuanchang, an editor of the financial journal Caijing, in June. The two Fangs – who are not related – had previously worked together, including on a story exposing a cancer medicine as fraudulent.

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