Our centre has learned that on the morning of 9 September 300 university students held a sit-down demonstration in front of the Xi'an International Studies University's [xi an wai guo yu da xue] administrative building to protest against the university's issuance of graduation certificates and other documents different from what were promised at the time they were admitted to the university. The demonstration went on peacefully with no blood shed. In other developments, some of this year's new Xinjiang university students have to this day still not received their admission notifications; the atmosphere is extremely tense in various universities in Xinjiang, with plainclothes public security officers all over the campuses; and Uighur students from Xinjiang are kept under close watch in some universities in Beijing.

Our centre has learned that some of this year's graduates of the Xi'an International Studies University discovered that the school marked them down as "off-the-job undergraduates" in their graduate's files although it promised at the time they were admitted that "undergraduate admitted through the unified entrance examination" would be entered in both their graduation certificates and graduate's files. Discontent was aroused among the students because employing units in society have two different scales of pay for [graduates marked down as] "undergraduates admitted through the unified entrance examination" and "off-the-job undergraduates," with the latter receiving less remuneration than the former. On 9 September 300 students demanded in front of the school's administrative building that it delete the "off-the-job undergraduate" annotation from their graduate's files. The students also protested against the alteration of the annotation "off-the-job undergraduate" to "undergraduate admitted through the unified entrance examination" in the files of some graduates of the same year after they paid tens of thousand yuan in fees to the school. The students accused the school of taking advantage of the opportunity to blackmail them. A member of the school's office staff confirmed to us the student protest on 9 September and alleged that the matter was being resolved.

Our centre has learned that some new students admitted from Fujian and Sichuan by universities in Xinjiang have to this day still not received their admission notifications although the school term was originally scheduled to begin on 7 September for new students. Some of the college applicants admitted by some universities in Xinjiang intend to give up studying in Xinjiang and attend other universities at their own expense. At present the atmosphere is extremely tense in the various universities in Xinjiang, with plainclothes public security officers all over the campuses and the schools themselves considering readjusting dormitory arrangements to separate the Uighur students from the Han students. In another development, Uighur students of the Minzu University of China [formerly known as the Central University for Nationalities] in Beijing alleged that they were kept under close watch by plainclothesmen.

Source: Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, Hong Kong, in Chinese 11 Sep 09