As many as 10,000 college students fought with Chinese police in four days of protests over their academic status, damaging cars and buildings and leaving at least 20 people injured, a foreign monitoring group said yesterday.
The protests erupted on Oct. 21 in Nanchang, a city in Jiangxi Province, after students learned that records from two private schools might not be recognized by the government, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
The paramilitary People's Armed Police was deployed to contain the protests and at least five people were detained, the report said. It said the protesters were from ethnic minorities, including some 2,000 Uighurs from China's Muslim northwest. The report said students were calling for a protest to be held on Sunday.
No domestic news organization reported the demonstration.
Students said a large crowd, filling almost two-thirds of a football pitch, had staged a demonstration on Monday and demanded to meet the college authorities, prompting clashes with the police.
"There were about 60 riot police. I heard some students attacked them," a female student who gave only her surname, Chen, said. "Classes have been suspended since the start of protests. We were supposed to start lessons again today, but no one attended. We don't know what to do. Many people want to quit."
Police said that the students had "committed extreme acts such as vandalizing and looting." Students blamed the theft of computers and the smashing of office windows on locals who had sneaked into the campus during the disturbance.
People who answered the phone at the Nanchang police headquarters and the administration offices of the two schools wouldn't confirm the report or give their names.
China has seen a series of such protests over the status of degrees granted to students who study at private schools set up as profit-making ventures by universities. The schools serve students who failed intensely competitive entrance exams for government-subsidized universities but can afford to pay higher private tuitions.
Universities initially granted such students degrees in the name of the parent institution. But the government has cracked down on that practice, prompting student complaints that the new status hurts their job prospects.
The institutions that were targeted in the Nanchang protest were the Jiangxi Ganjiang Institute of Technology and the Jiangxi Institute of Fashion College, according to the Information Center.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique