Calls are developing among rights defending rights abroad, universities and student activists for the authorities in China to release people – including many young overseas universities – detained for participating in the demonstrations of “white paper” in November 2022.
The Chinese network of human rights defenders abroad estimated that more than 100 people were detained for their role in at least 68 demonstrations which took place in 31 Chinese cities at the beginning of November.
[ >>List of detained protestersOpens in new window ]
“At the time of this press release, there are names of more than 30 people who have been placed in police custody; we estimate that at least more than 100 people were detained, and some of them were simply published or published during the” pending trial “,” said the group in a statement on its website on January 20.
Even prisoners released on bail should remain under close police supervision for a year, he said.
Among the detainees, the Westminster photography graduate, Xin Shang, was arrested for participating in a demonstration at Liangmaqiao in Beijing, where he was filmed by reciting the Shakespeare sonnet “”, I compare you to a summer day “to police officers, human rights in China, the Executive Director of China, Zhou Fengsuo, declared via his Twitter account.
“Xin Shang is innocent, free Xin Shang!” Zhou tweeted.
‘Deep concern’
Xin was not the only demonstrator to be attracted by the movement after graduating from a university outside of China.
The teachers of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago called for the release of the former Qin Ziyi, who was one of the detained persons.
“”[We] are aware that people, including a former student from the University of Chicago, were recently detained in China because of their participation in peaceful demonstrations where people have held virgin sheets to express a dissent to the zero -cocvid policy of the government, “the ministry said in a statement on his website.
“We express our deep concern for the well-being of Qin Ziyi and all those who have been detained and hope that they will be released quickly,” he said.
In London, the Goldsmiths University declared that London tab Student newspaper which is “concerned” by the detention of his former student SIQI.
“We are aware of the relationships deeply concerning the detention of a former goldsmith student in China for having participated in a peaceful vigil to remember the victims of the Xinjiang fire,” a spokesman for the university in the newspaper, referring to a deadly locking fire in a building of apartments in the capital of the Autonomous region of Urumqi.
“We condemn in the strongest terms of the abolition of freedom of expression and urge the competent authorities to immediately release the detained persons in connection with the vigil,” he said.
‘One voice’
A third -cycle student in Washington, DC who only gave the Wu surname for fear of reprisals, said that the study abroad often widens the horizons of Chinese international students.
“In China, there is only one voice, and it is difficult for anyone to think independently of that voice,” said Wu, referring to the official government line. “The study abroad exposes you to different voices, the more people know things that are blocked by the Chinese government, the more they are likely to do something different.”
“The Chinese story teaches that protests are bad and will quickly lead to arrest and that people are not allowed to meet to express their opinions,” said WU. “Once you feel to live outside China, you find that it is very common and healthy to have different political voices.”
The US rights activist Yang Zhanqing called on more schools abroad to expressed demonstrators to express themselves on their behalf and call for their release.
“Their arrests are abnormal and illegal, and these schools have the type of credibility and a public platform that could help them to release,” Yang told RFA.
“In this way, acts [of the Chinese government] Will be exposed and more people will pay attention to what they will do next, “said Yang.
Rights deprived
Students of the University of New South Wales in Australia have recently set up a petition on Change.org calling their university to express themselves for the release of the former former Lianjing, which has been detained for more than a month and “will probably be long for its role in demonstrations.
“We, current students and former students of the University of New South Wales, writes our serious concern about the security of the A4 revolution demonstrators in China, and call the UNSW to support its former former,” said the petition, referring to the empty leaves of A4 printer paper retained by the demonstrators at the time.
“Many demonstrators were taken by police suspected of” gathering to disrupt public order “, said the petition. “Some have even been deprived of their rights to access official legal documents or to see their lawyers.”
“Although some were released on bail, the majority of them were officially arrested, always detained in detention and possibly confronted with heavy penalties,” he said, calling the “shocking and unacceptable” repression.
“The tendency of repression continues at the time of writing,” he said.
While Chinese human rights defenders said they had gathered dozens of experiences of confirmed prisoners, some reports were more difficult to verify, because “family members are reluctant to leave fears of reprisals from the Chinese government”.
“Since the Chinese government did not mediate or authorize any press to report on these cases and also threatened families to remain silent, the cases of detentions described below probably indicate the tip of the iceberg,” said the group, warning that prisoners are at high risk of disappearance and forced torture. “
Intensification
He called on the international community to intensify pressure on the Chinese Communist Party in power while local authorities still decided to prosecute the detainees, adding that there was a 99.99% conviction rate in the Chinese judicial system.
The Human Rights Watch in New York called Beijing to release immediately and abandon all the charges against everyone detained for participating in the demonstrations, which were triggered by the locking fire in Urumqi, but which has also seen calls to the Chinese leader Xi Jinping to resign and call elections.
“Young people in China pay a high price for dared to express themselves for freedom and human rights,” said Human Rights Watch Chinese researcher, Yaqiu Wang, in a press release on the group’s website.
“Assisting a vigil and asking the authorities to respect human rights are not crimes,” she said. “The repression against the demonstrators revealed only the deep fear of Beijing of the power of young people in the country.”
Police have also threatened lawyers who tried to provide legal assistance to the demonstrators detained and suspended a group of group that lawyers use on the Chinese social media application WeChat, according to the press release, adding that the authorities harassed friends from the demonstrators detained who provided them with support.
The Weibo and WeChat accounts that have shown that support for demonstrations has been suspended, while a WeChat account that simply published a photo of virgin paper has been permanently removed, Human Rights Watch said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.