College students in China riot

Between 5,000 and 10,000 students from Zhengzhou University in Henan province were involved in the unrest, which broke out on Thursday night and saw the campus ransacked, according to participants and witnesses.

Photos of the unrest posted on the Internet showed the windows of an on-campus branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China smashed in, dormitories and cars vandalized, and bicycles strewn across the university.

“The school authorities have cheated us,” a student surnamed Liu told AFP by telephone, explaining why the riots broke out.

Liu said around 15,000 students had originally been promised diplomas with the university but were later told they would only be given diplomas bearing the name of a less prestigious branch of the institution.

“We all got very angry with such conduct... in fact, they have been treating us badly for many years. We couldn’t bear it any longer.”

Liu said the riots lasted into the weekend but had now subsided.

However he said the 15,000 students affected by the diploma issue had gone on strike and would not return to class until the dispute was resolved.

“We students have decided to stop extremist actions. We are on strike and refuse to take final exams,” he said.

A resident living near the campus surnamed Wei told AFP by telephone that thousands of students had staged a sit-in in front of the university’s main administrative building.

“Hundreds of policemen are deployed there to maintain order,” the man said.

A teacher at the institute surnamed Yan confirmed that, while the riots had subsided, students were still protesting.

“I can’t tell you more details, the authorities don’t allow us to do that,” the teacher said.

Local police and Communist Party officials refused to comment Monday while state controlled media were also silent, reflecting the ultra-sensitive nature of student unrest in China.

Students led the 1989 Tiananmen democracy uprising, which the military brutally suppressed, also in the month of June, resulting in hundreds if not thousands of people being killed.

The riots at Zhengzhou University also appeared to have involved physical confrontations between the students and authorities, although there were no reports of a huge crackdown.

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