N Reports | Violent conflict and "foreign forces" in the transfer of North China College

Reporting: Xiaochong Editing: Fei Fei, Benben, Samuel

In early June, a large-scale student protest broke out in the North Central College of Nanjing Normal University, opposing the transfer of independent colleges to vocational undergraduates. During the period, a large number of police blocked the campus, violent clashes occurred with students, and many students were injured.

Several witnesses at the scene told reporters that from June 7 to 8, the police beat the students with batons, sprayed irritating liquid at the students, and violently dragged some students away. At the same time, the police and the school checked students’ mobile phones one by one, forcibly deleted photos, videos and related online speeches of the conflict scene, and brought students who were actively spreading information to the Public Security Bureau for questioning.

"When I saw my classmates being dragged and beaten by the police, I burst into tears, and I felt distressed. The trauma in my heart is permanent, but there is nothing I can do about it," said Lu Qiuzhen (pseudonym), a junior at North Central College in an interview.

The local police Danyang Public Security Bureau issued a notice on June 8 saying that the public security organs were "besieged and abused by students and obstructed law enforcement" when maintaining order. The reporter contacted the Danyang City Public Security Bureau and the Zhenjiang City Public Security Bureau to ask questions about police violence, but their staff refused to respond.

The conflict is not unique to North Central College. Several media reported that since June 4, students in at least seven independent colleges in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanxi have gathered and protested in groups, and some clashes have occurred between the police and the people, with the most intense clashes at the North Central College.

The contradiction arises from the country's "independent college transfer" policy. Last year, the Ministry of Education required that the independent colleges of some undergraduate colleges and higher vocational and technical colleges at the junior college level be merged and transformed into "vocational and technical universities". On June 4 this year, the Ministry of Education announced that 13 independent colleges had begun to be relocated. Among them, the Zhongbei College of Nanjing Normal University and Jiangsu Vocational and Technical College of Economics and Trade will be merged into Nanjing Vocational and Technical University of Economics and Trade.

Since the independent college is a private secondary college of the undergraduate university, students believe that the merger and transfer of the junior college is equivalent to the downgrade of the diploma, and the degree of education is downgraded from "ordinary undergraduate" to "vocational undergraduate", which affects the scope of application for public examinations and postgraduate entrance examinations and job hunting. Therefore, express objection. At the same time, students questioned that the school's transfer work was not transparent and not open. The object of merger and the change of educational background were not clarified in the early investigation opinions. Later, students refused to communicate when they expressed opposition, so they gathered to protest and defend their rights.

This is a rare large-scale student group protest in China in more than a decade, and they inadvertently stepped on the sensitive node of June 4th. They do not call for democracy and freedom, but just maintain a diploma. Even if the purpose of the protests is not threatening to the system, the instability of "group gatherings" and "rights defense protests" cannot be tolerated in the current environment.

Badiucao , a human rights activist, commented, "Mainland students are so brave to defend their rights and protest, it is commendable, and they deserve our support!" He added that although the students who were transferred to protest did not have the idealism of the June 4 students, but They leave the Internet, unite in real life, and speak out bravely in the face of power, which is an important accumulation of the civil rights movement in the country.

The wave of nationalism, however, presents the struggle with a new dilemma. On the Internet, the hat of "foreign forces" has never been absent, and the voices of "don't post the video to the Internet" and "don't be interviewed by foreign media" appear within the protesting students. big policy.” Badiucao commented that this "life-saving" public opinion strategy did not work. The arbitrary political death penalty of netizens and the censorship of speech by the powerful public power made the students lose their legitimacy and became the enemy of the state apparatus.

Even if they just want to maintain their own diploma.

Event backtracking

Lu Qiuzhen said that on the afternoon of June 6, Chang Qing, the dean of the North Central College, watched the performance of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party. When he walked out of the theater, more than 100 students gathered around him and "discussed an explanation" about the transfer.

The Danyang Public Security Bureau announced that the student "illegally detained the dean and restricted his personal freedom for more than 30 hours" to prevent him from leaving.

Several students told reporters that they did not agree with the police's accusations of "illegal detention and restriction of personal freedom". Lu Qiuzhen said that on June 6, she heard the dean at the scene saying "I voluntarily stay and be with my classmates" to solve the problem. A recording provided by her shows that on June 7, the dean said: "I didn't leave, I was waiting here with you... I'm in a hurry, and I hope the leaders above can give a positive answer. "

Lu Qiuzhen added that while the dean stayed on campus, she saw that students kept buying water, fruit, and meals for the dean, and even held umbrellas for the dean.

"I was really angry and speechless after reading the official announcement. The school turned black and white, we were wronged, and we couldn't make sense," Lu Qiuzhen said.

In the early morning of that night, the Ministry of Education , Nanjing Normal University and the North Central College of Nanjing Normal University all issued a statement stating that for the students recruited before the transfer, the student identity, student status file, and Xuexin.com student status information will remain unchanged, and will be trained according to the original talent training plan. , the graduation certificate and degree certificate are still issued in the name of Zhongbei College of Nanjing Normal University.

However, the doubts and dissatisfaction of the students did not subside, and they continued to gather to protest. Zhou Qiyi (pseudonym), a senior student at North Central College, said in an interview that many students believe that the school is about to be relocated, the original school no longer exists, and its documents are not credible. At the same time, some students objected to the transfer and merger of the school, and the "student status information remains unchanged" did not respond to their demands.

Lu Qiuzhen said that on the morning of June 7, hundreds of police officers lined up to block off the campus, and some police uniforms had "auxiliary police" and "security guard" printed on them.

She said that on the evening of June 7, she and more than 300 classmates confronted the police at the south gate of the campus. There were five rows of police officers at the scene, with about 30 people in each row. Protesting students held banners and chanted slogans: "Reject the job, give me back the ordinary" and "People's police for the people".

At 8 o'clock that night, at the south gate of the campus, violence broke out.

"I saw a few police officers surrounding a classmate, pressing her head, punching her, and slapping her hands. There were also girls who were pulled by the police by their hair and clothes. Four police officers forcibly carried a girl away," Lu Qiuzhen said.

"I was angry and scared. There were a lot of policemen, both men and women, grabbing and beating. They were holding batons, and we were defenseless," Lu Qiuzhen said. "There is a five-star red flag at the gate of the school, and they beat students under the five-star red flag."

She provided reporters with a video of the night that showed a girl being violently pulled by two police officers and her clothes were torn off. The other two police officers saw the girl struggling, lifted her feet and forcibly dragged her away.

Video of the same scene circulated on Twitter about two hours later. In the video, the protesting students gathered together, raised their hands, and confronted the police who formed the human wall. Some students were continuously pulled from the crowd by the police, pressed to the ground, and violently dragged away. In the video, students shouted: "The police beat people! Why beat people!" At the same time, the police kept repeating through the loudspeaker: "Keep calm."

Lu Qiuzhen said that she shouted slogans with the classmates in rows and rushed to the police wall again and again. "The boys were pulling up the banners, they were tall and their eyes were firm," she said.

She was nervous, excited, angry, and scared. Her hands were shaking again and again, her palms were sweating, and the scene was filled with the smell of sweat.

"The mighty classmates around me all have the same goal and move forward one after another. I rarely experience this kind of solidarity in reality, and I am very moved," she said.

She described the police standing in five rows, with the people in the back putting their hands on the shoulders of the people in front, expressionless. Students stared into their eyes, and they turned their heads. Some policemen smiled contemptuously and jokingly, as if saying, "Look what you're doing." The girl beside her was very angry and shouted, "How can you people's police be so indifferent?" No one responded.

Lu Qiuzhen said that suddenly, the police sprayed the students with an irritating liquid that looked like pepper water. She said: "I stepped back. The classmates were very orderly. Everyone protected each other and retreated together."

"I had no fear then, only anger," she said.

The reporter called the Zhongshan Road Police Station of the Danyang Public Security Bureau to ask about the police violence on the evening of June 7. The staff said: "The police obey orders and maintain order. I personally don't know if there is a situation of beating." The reporter contacted Zhenjiang again. The Municipal Public Security Bureau, its staff refused to respond to related questions and hung up the phone several times.

On the evening of June 7, while the violent conflict occurred, Dean Chang Qing had a dialogue with more than 100 students in the lecture hall, and continued to communicate about the merger and transfer. In the early morning, the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education issued an announcement, "suspending the merger and transfer work of independent colleges and higher vocational colleges"; Nanjing Normal University issued a notice, "terminating the merger and transfer work of Zhongbei College and higher vocational colleges, and no longer transfer. Undergraduate vocational education”.

But the distrust between students and the school continued. Zhou Qiyi said that although she was not in the lecture hall, she heard that the students on the scene questioned the difference between the "suspended transfer" of the Education Department and the "termination of transfer" of Nanjing Normal University, and asked the dean if he could guarantee that the transfer would be permanently stopped. The dean was silent.

A staff member of the Information Office of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education told reporters: "The transfer is currently suspended. Whether or not to continue the transfer and how to transfer is still under study. At present, no information will be released to the public." Chen Zhufeng, Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of Nanjing Normal University He refused to be interviewed, and the contact information provided on the official website of North China College could not be reached.

In the early morning of the next day, violence occurred for the second time in the lecture hall.

Lu Qiuzhen and Zhou Qiyi said that at 4 a.m. on June 8, more than 100 police officers entered the lecture hall, trying to take the dean who was sitting on the podium away, and clashed with the students who were blocking them. "The police beat people with batons, and many students were bleeding and injured, and they couldn't even run in the lecture hall," Zhou Qiyi said.

The video provided by Lu Qiuzhen showed that some police officers beat students with batons, or pointed batons at students who approached and yelled at them. Some police officers pulled girls by hair and dragged them away, or sprayed crowds with irritating liquids at close range. A girl cried: "I can't open my eyes!"

In the video, unarmed students faced the police batons and shields. Some people poured drinks at the police, some used mobile phones to record, or used their bodies to protect classmates who were beaten, pulled, and pushed by the police. Some people were stimulated by the help of mineral water. Students who sprayed sexual liquid into the eyes do cleaning.

The screams and cries of the students, as well as the scolding and whistles of the police, became more and more harsh in the small lecture hall.

Lu Qiuzhen said: "Several police officers beat a classmate around, some girls were beaten with blood on the top of their heads, and some boys were strangled with red marks all over their bodies."

She added that the classmates she knew who were injured in the lecture hall could only buy medicine by themselves and could not go out to the hospital. A seriously injured classmate told her that she called 120, but "120 heard that it was from our school, so I hung up."

In the video, there are special police officers wearing bulletproof vests, helmets, and explosion-proof shields, police officers with the words "Danyang Mobile" or "Zhenjiang Mobile", auxiliary police officers in uniforms, and black clothes. Men who were not in uniform, but all had batons or irritating spray in their hands.

In the Danyang Public Security Bureau 's announcement, the above conflict was described as: "The public security organs have repeatedly shouted warnings to students and carried out legal publicity, but they have been besieged and abused by some students, obstructing law enforcement... The public security organs will take necessary measures in accordance with the law and will be arrested. Take the trapped people away.”

The reporter called the Zhongshan Road Police Station of the Danyang Public Security Bureau and the Zhenjiang Public Security Bureau to ask about the legal basis for police violence and the use of force in the early morning of June 8, but their staff refused to answer.

On the morning of June 8, on the campus streets, violence occurred for the third time.

Lu Qiuzhen said that a few hours after the police violence in the early morning report hall, the police, with the help of school staff, violently controlled several students on the campus and brought them to the police station.

The video she provided showed about 20 police officers pinning two students to the ground, punching and kicking the students who had fallen to the ground. The police grabbed and dragged the fleeing students in the chaotic crowd. Many students came to support them. The school administrative staff pointed at individual students, and the police rushed towards the students.

In another video she provided, a boy was grabbed by five police officers, and he tried to break free, but was pinned to the ground; another boy was standing next to him, and six police officers and a school staff suddenly rushed forward, using Hands clamped around his neck and escorted him away; another school staff pointed to students around him shouting, "Calm down, calm down."

Lu Qiuzhen said that the police also went directly to the dormitory to arrest people. "Some students criticized the school and the police on the Internet, and their remarks were more direct, and they were taken away." In addition, starting from June 8, the police and school staff went to the student dormitory to check students' mobile phones one by one, and forcibly deleted videos and pictures of police violence.

"We were all frightened," Lu Qiuzhen said. "I deleted the circle of friends in advance, the video and pictures were uploaded to the cloud, and the chat records were deleted after chatting, so I was not embarrassed by the police."

The Danyang Municipal Public Security Bureau announced that the public security organ "is investigating the illegal activities involved in the incident according to law." The Zhongshan Road Police Station of the Danyang City Public Security Bureau and the Zhenjiang City Public Security Bureau refused to answer questions about the violent arrest of students during the day on June 8, the compulsory inspection of students' mobile phones, and the deletion of videos.

Fear also comes from reporting among classmates. Lu Qiuzhen said that a boy in her class wrote an article in QQ space criticizing police violence and the school. Although it was deleted a few minutes after it was published, she was reported by her classmates with screenshots. She was arrested by the police on the evening of June 7, and was arrested about 24 hours later. freed.

Lu Qiuzhen added that on June 8, school staff and counselors entered the WeChat group of students' classes and dormitories, and students were prohibited from building their own groups. "Our class set up a small group, and the screenshots were sent out within a few dozen minutes, and then quickly disbanded."

"We don't know what to do next, we can only keep calm and go to class normally, but the mood is very depressed," Lu Qiuzhen said. "We are restricted from speech and there is nothing we can do."

"The school leaders even directed arrests, and I'm very disappointed with the school," she said. "I just hope that the students can be safe, protect themselves and be safe."

Tracing the source of the storm

The turmoil in the transfer of seven schools, including North Central College, stemmed from the country's adjustment to the shortcomings of the independent college system. Independent colleges emerged in the 1990s. Under the contradiction between the expansion of college enrollment and the shortage of higher education resources, the state encourages undergraduate colleges to cooperate with social institutions to establish secondary independent colleges at the undergraduate level to promote the popularization of higher education. According to research statistics , as of 2018, 4.73 million students across the country have graduated from more than 300 independent colleges.

However, the "expansion of higher education" no longer meets the needs of society. In 2019, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security issued a document saying that the shortage of senior skilled workers in China is as high as 20 million, calling for a change in the concept of talents, emphasis on technical education,

But vocational education is considered to be "lower class" education. Xiong Bingqi, deputy dean of the 21st Century Education Research Institute , pointed out in an article after the transfer incident that students opposed the transfer, reflecting that "in the environment of academic social public opinion, vocational education is stigmatized and rendered as an education for poor students."

Xiong Bingqi said that in developing vocational education, it is impossible to solve the problem by building a vocational and technical university and making a fuss about the name of the school. He proposed that it is necessary to eliminate the institutional discrimination and dwarfing concept of vocational education, and criticized the education department for using the general high rate and the undergraduate rate to evaluate the junior and senior high schools, and to allocate educational resources accordingly.

But the reality is that degree diplomas have become "hard currency" for career development, and degrees are closely linked to social class. Many interviewees told reporters that losing their ordinary undergraduate status and switching to vocational undergraduates will have a significant impact on job hunting, postgraduate entrance examinations, public examinations, and examinations. Taking the civil service examination as an example, candidates with a non-undergraduate degree can apply for a much smaller range of positions than candidates with a bachelor's degree, and their grades and wages are lower.

The Beijing News analyzed that due to the fact that independent colleges are unwilling to lose the brand name of the parent school, the parent school is unwilling to lose the tuition fee of the independent college, and the transfer work has progressed slowly for more than ten years. In May last year, the Ministry of Education issued an "ultimatum", requiring all independent colleges to formulate work plans for conversion before the end of 2020.

But the setting of deadlines, as well as the arrogance of university administrations and the habitual neglect of students' opinions, made the contradictions deepen.

It was not until February this year that North China College began to solicit opinions from students on transfer. The screenshot provided by Zhou Qiyi to reporters shows that North Central College collected the "Public Opinion Assessment on Merger and Transfer" from students through the APP in early February, and outlined in a few words "according to the spirit of the Ministry of Education's transfer, students are invited to give their opinions", but did not indicate the merger of schools, degrees Information change and other specific measures.

Zhou Qiyi said: "We don't know how to transfer and what to transfer to, we only know that this is a national policy, and the collection of opinions is purely formal, there is only one option of 'agree/disagree' and the optional opinion column, we just tick it agree."

She said there had been rumors of a merger with the Vocational College since February, but students asked the school and never got a response. It was not until June 5 that the Ministry of Education agreed to the merger and transfer of Zhongbei College in the news. At this time, the school still did not release any news related to the transfer.

"Many people were shocked and angry and felt that they had been deceived by the school," Zhou Qiyi said.

As a result, the students went to the dean the next day to "discuss what to say", which was followed by school closures, demonstrations, and police violence.

"The school ignored public opinion, refused to communicate, and made the problem bigger and bigger, and the students' anger was aroused step by step," Zhou Qiyi said. "It's normal for students to care about their future, and no one wants to hurt themselves."

Also making her angry are staff at all levels of the school. She said: "When the police beat people, the teacher never spoke for us, and even ordered the police to arrest us. We are just defending our rights, and your teacher is also a role model. Why do you arrest people at every turn?"

She also said that during the conflict, the counselor held a meeting and said that it was impossible for students to organize such a large mass gathering to protest, and it must have been used by foreign forces.

Rights protection and "foreign forces"

The accusations of "foreign forces" come more from the Internet. Students were violently attacked by the police and sought help on social media such as Weibo and Douban. Many netizens ridiculed the students for “becoming the same as Hong Kong’s waste youth” because of the words “parade” and “protest”. , you can hit people." At the same time, many netizens claimed that "students colluded with foreign forces" to undermine social stability before the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party.

The reporter observed and found that the incident of Xiao Meili and other feminist activists being bombarded by witch hunts this year shows that netizens have the right to define "foreign forces" and are labeled as "political death sentences". In the public discussion of the transfer incident, the video of police violence and the voices of rational discussions were deleted and the accounts were completely removed, pointing at the political stance of the students. As a result, the merger and transfer lost its focus, and the students were beaten and ignored.

Among the students who organized the protest, there were instructions to "don't post the video on the Internet" and "don't accept interviews with foreign media"; the two students who were interviewed by reporters repeatedly emphasized: "We are not opposed to the government, we are not opposed to the major policies of the country, The objection is that the school process is not transparent and not open, we just want to protect our rights.”

Badiucao , a human rights activist, commented that the public opinion tactics of "patriotic rejection of the Internet" are in order to protect themselves and hope to mobilize centrist students, but "obviously their cleverness and small calculations are preventing them from clearly realizing that they are already enemies of the state apparatus. "In the eyes of the authorities, gathering a crowd is a threat to the party's leadership, and there is no reason to justify this behavior," he said. "There is no difference between the so-called internal contradictions among the people and foreign forces."

After the police violence, Lu Qiuzhen said that all the students in the school were forced to go to the classroom and attend class meetings. She experienced the scene of violence and saw the people around her fall under the fists of the police, and her heart was stabbed by the trauma. In the few days after the violence, she was depressed, so she studied hard, got up at 7 am to go to the library, read professional books and focused, and returned to the dormitory at 7 pm. "After the postgraduate entrance examination, just leave this place," she said.

Because of the danger of being reported and the impending quarrel, everything about the march and violence, she did not want to talk about it with her classmates any more. Like the classmates who were beaten, arrested, and witnessed all this, she pretended to be fine and continued her studies and life.

Just inadvertently, the scene of violence flashed back to her mind. Thinking of her classmate being knocked to the ground, dragged to the police station, and sprayed with irritating liquid to the point where she couldn't open her eyes, she sat alone in a daze.

She said: "I will never give in. If I give in more, there will be less hope. I can't be a torch, I can be a firefly. I can tell right from wrong and never forget what happened here."

"And then, be safe," she added after thinking about it.

(Because the interviewee is at risk of being arrested, in order to protect their safety, both Lu Qiuzhen and Zhou Qiyi are pseudonyms in the text)

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