May 25, 2000
Killing of Beijing Student Sets Off
Protests
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
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Agence France-Presse |
| Students reading a protest letter
on a campus bulletin board on Tuesday at a vigil at Beijing
University. A student was raped and killed last week.
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EIJING, May 24 -- The rape and
killing of a student at Beijing University, China's most prestigious
college, has set off student demonstrations, in defiance of a general
ban on public protests.
The university, long an oasis for liberal ideas, was the
intellectual epicenter of the huge pro-democracy protests on Tiananmen
Square in 1989 that ended violently when troops dispersed the
protesters, killing hundreds.
Officials are ever wary of student movements at the university, and
the current protests are being conducted two weeks before the June 4
anniversary of the 1989 crackdown.
On Tuesday evening, after the university had belatedly announced
the death on Friday of the first-year student, Qiu Qingfeng, hundreds
of students held a vigil filled with songs and chants and a sit-in
outside an administration building. They demanded to speak with top
university officials. At one point, a few students forced their way
into the building.
The students resumed protesting today, ultimately making university
officials allow them to hold a memorial service on Thursday. Today, a
makeshift altar was constructed on campus, covered with candles and
flowers.
Although the core of the demands focused on campus security and the
university's responsibility for the death, the protest also gave
students an opportunity to vent their anger on other issues like
rising tuition costs and attempts to limit student expression.
"We can't stay silent," said a poster seen on campus on Tuesday.
Student demonstrations are rare in China and require government
permission. Students from Beijing University and other local
institutions were allowed to protest against the NATO bombing of the
Chinese Embassy in Belgrade last year, and that resulted in
demonstrations outside the American Embassy here. But more recently,
students were denied permission for rallies over independence for
Taiwan.
Through posters and meetings with student leaders, university
officials urged students today "not to do anything excessive or
emotional."
Computer bulletin boards at the university were closed today, but
the anger quickly spilled over to more popular chat rooms.
"You've tried so hard to fool students for 11 years," one person
wrote on Sina.com, a reference to the the 1989 protests. "You should
not use the lie of 'being rational' to cheat students from mourning."
Another person posted at the site, "They are enrolling more
students and making more money, so why don't they improve the
facilities?"
Ms. Qiu lived at a secondary campus on the outskirts of Beijing, an
hour's bus ride from the main campus. That branch, in rural Changping,
has housed some first-year students for much of the last decade. Some
students said it was to have been closed last year.
Ms. Qiu was raped and killed while walking from a public bus stop
back to the branch campus. She was on her way back from the main
campus, where she had taken an examination.
The university has a shuttle bus between the campuses, but it is
unclear whether it was available when Ms. Qiu headed home.
