Free to Think talks with Dr. Jo Smith Finley, a Reader in Chinese studies at Newcastle University, UK. In March 2021, Dr. Smith Finley was sanctioned by the government of the People's Republic of China, along with a group of UK politicians and peers, a legal chambers, and the entire staff of The Uyghur Tribunal. The sanctions include a ban on traveling to China, a freeze on assets, and a ban on collaborating with Chinese counterparts in the PRC.

The sanctions were in retaliation for Dr. Smith Finley's research about reported human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. These include the forced internment of over one million Uyghurs, a largely Muslim ethnic minority, in what some have labeled an ongoing attempted genocide.

By targeting the careers of scholars outside of China, the sanctions represent a dramatic escalation in the Party-state's campaign to censor information that is contrary to the official national narrative, and a threat to academic freedom everywhere.