DATE=5/25/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-PROTEST END (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-262810
BYLINE=LETA HONG FINCHER
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Two nights of protest by students at Beijing
University have ended, after campus officials agreed
to hold a memorial service for a murdered student.
The campus remains under unusually tight security.
The protests came just a week and a half weeks before
the anniversary of the 1989 crackdown against pro-
democracy activists at Tiananmen Square. VOA's Leta
Hong Fincher has this report from Beijing.
TEXT: Beijing University officials quelled the
protests on Thursday morning, by permitting students
to hold a memorial service for nineteen year-old rape
and murder victim Qiu Qingfeng. Ms. Qiu's body was
found last Saturday, but campus officials waited three
days before releasing the information.
Angry students staged two nights of protests to demand
the right to mourn their classmate publicly, after the
administration initially rejected calls for a memorial
service. Students also demanded stronger security
measures, greater dialogue with university officials
and greater freedom of expression.
Thursday's memorial service was a partial concession
to the students, but the event was strictly monitored
by plainclothes police. Students were not permitted
to light candles or leave any offerings other than a
single white paper flower provided by the official
student assembly, which is organized by the Communist
Party.
The campus security bureau also posted notices
announcing that one of the people who had openly
criticized the Beijing University President Wednesday
night had been detained. The notice said the man was
not a true Beijing University student, and had merely
posed as a student. It also said the man had been
released, but warned students to report what it called
"outsiders" to the authorities.
In a sign that some students remained dissatisfied,
one of the notices had a message scrawled across it,
saying "according to this logic, Mao Zedong should
have been arrested as well." Mao Zedong was the
founder of the People's Republic of China in 1949, and
Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party for almost
three decades. He had worked as a librarian on the
Beijing University campus as a young man. (Signed)
NEB/LHF/KBK
25-May-2000 12:23 PM EDT (25-May-2000 1623 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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