HKUST violence sends chills
Mainland students face dangerous atmosphere
Mainland students are facing a rising terror-like atmosphere at Hong Kong universities, as radical local blackclad protesters politicize the campus where academic freedom is at risk, heavily weighing on the future of the Oriental Pearl’s education.
During a dialogue between Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) president Wei Shyy and students on Wednesday night, a student from the Chinese mainland, who was accused of pushing a masked protester, was beaten by a crowd of protesters. Even when security guards tried to maintain order and protect him, black-clad students knocked his head and attacked him with an umbrella.
Rioters, who turned the campus into a battleground, also exposed the mainland student’s personal information on social media and took his belongings, several HKUST students who witnessed the incident told the Global Times on Thursday.
The scene shocked the public, who urged an end to the violence at the Hong Kong campus. This was the first incident that rioters resorted to “vigilante justice” on campus, as the use of violence has been constantly growing in the city. The brutal beating caused the forehead of the mainland student, Zheng Candi, to bleed, as seen on video.
Some protesters accused Zheng of pushing another protester to the ground.
Around 7 pm on Wednesday, Zheng was ready to leave, but when he passed by a group of black-clad students, a female student suddenly hurled insults at him. When he walked down the aisle, a masked man in black approached him and suddenly fell to the ground, some witnesses told the Global Times. Later, the man claimed that Zheng had pushed him, but Zheng’s hands remained inside his pockets, according to the video footage.
An HKUST alumnus surnamed Cao, who is part of a research team at the university, was attending the dialogue at that time. He told the Global Times on Thursday that a large number of masked black-clad students demanded that the president condemn police “violence.”
Another mainland student said he felt helpless when seeing Zheng was beaten, “and we dared not rush into the crowd, nor did the security guards or university leaders. The police were not allowed to enter the campus. Nobody could help us and we only saw the wobbling black umbrellas,” he told the Global Times.
The vigilante-style attack has been prevailing among hardcore rioters, who take justice into their own hands by beating others who disagree with the anti-government movement. Violence has also prompted fears in increasingly divided campuses.
A professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University told the Global Times that the current atmosphere in the university is “irritating,” as local students come to class with masks and stick anti-government slogans around the campus. “Many local teachers have shown excessive sympathy toward students, while students are so arrogant that they have gone to the extreme,” he said.
Such incidents have aroused concerns that it might not be the only attack on campus as the social unrest continues, and some mainland students have been considering taking temporary leave or transferring to mainland colleges.
Chen Qingqing and Wang Wenwen contributed to this story