Chinese students clash with police in Nanjing 18 Jun - rights centre

421 字
2009 年 6 月 23 日 22:11
BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
BBCAPP
英文
(c) 2009 The British Broadcasting Corporation. All Rights Reserved. No material may be reproduced except with the express permission of The British Broadcasting Corporation.
Text of report by Hong Kong Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy on 19 June

As this centre has learned, an extra-large disturbance occurred about 10 o'clock last night in Nanjing's Zhongyangmen area. Suspecting that they were cheated with regard to their diplomas, students of the Nanjing Institute of Industrial Technology at the Shangyuanmen campus, numbering more than 1,000, took to the streets to parade from the campus to the Zhongyangmen area in Nanjing. The authorities dispatched hundreds of police officers to take precautions along the route of the parade. In the small hours of this morning, when the police tried to disperse the students, a bloody clash occurred. Thirty students were injured, and two police vehicles were smashed. Today, in the areas where the students had demonstrated, there were still several hundred police officers keeping a sharp lookout.

According to information obtained by this centre, when they were admitted to the school, the students were promised that they would get a college diploma upon graduation. They have each paid a tuition of 50,000 yuan and have studied in the school for three years. Now the date of graduation is drawing near, and they learned that they would not be given a college diploma but, instead, would get a technological proficiency certificate. The students felt that they were cheated. So they held a parade yesterday, starting from the Shangyuanmen campus and walking three kilometres to Zhongyangmen. The parade drew tens of thousands of onlookers along the route. At one o'clock this morning, the hundreds of police officers began to disperse the students, triggering a clash. Two police vehicles were smashed, and 30 students were injured. Some 100 students were taken away by the police. This incident was confirmed by the No 6 Traffic Police Brigade of the Nanjing Public Security Bureau and by a teach of that school when we contacted them for information. Today responsible officials, including the secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial CCP Committee and the mayor of Nanjing, personally came to the school to deal with the matter. At this time, it is not known whether the 100 students taken away by the police yesterday have been released or not. Today there are still 50 police vehicles and several hundred police officers taking precaution in areas between Shangyuanmen and the northern station at Zhongyangmen.

Source: Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, Hong Kong, in Chinese 19 Jun 09