May 19, 2003, Day One
Yesterday, at a little after 4 p.m. on May 18, 2003, at Kyiv Polytechnic University in Ukraine (the school I attend), a Chinese student living in room 12-07 of Dormitory No. 19 (19th dorm for short) returned from outside to the dormitory. (Explanation: 12-07 means room 17 on the 12th floor. Foreign students in this dorm are concentrated on the 11th and 12th floors.) When he was entering the dormitory, he was stopped by the gate guard and asked to show his dorm pass. That was normal. The key point is that all of this Chinese student’s documents were complete and in order. The problem was that the photo on his dorm pass had come off, so he had glued it back on himself, and the stamp on it was a little unclear. The guard said his dorm pass was not valid. The student said, then let’s go check with the dorm administrator, because he has records there that can prove my identity. That was also a perfectly normal procedure. But the guard said he would not go, said he simply would not resolve the issue, and absolutely refused to let him enter.
During the argument, the guard dealt with him in an extremely unreasonable way, basically like a thug. Our student kept insisting on verifying the actual facts. In the end the guard and our fellow countryman got into a physical fight, and the guard beat him. At that point someone called upstairs and brought down several Chinese students from above, and they beat up that unreasonable troublemaking guard.
After that, the dorm administrator stepped in and resolved the issue, confirming that everything about that student was in order. The guard also apologized. We thought that would be the end of it, but no! At around 10 p.m., two other campus police officers went to that person’s room and demanded to inspect his passport and dorm pass, but were refused.
Close to 12 o’clock, some girls went to the kitchen and heard some Russians saying things like “left side or right side,” but they didn’t pay attention. Then at around 12:20, suddenly the entire floor lost power. About 3 or 4 minutes later, the power came back.
Just as everyone was about to go to sleep, there was a second blackout. At that time about 5 or 6 Russians rushed into the room next door to that Chinese student’s room (because the Chinese student’s room was already closed and he had gone to sleep, but the people next door were still awake), and beat the three male students and one female student inside. They smashed the computer, refrigerator, furniture, everything. They’re not human — they even beat the girl.
After beating them, they went out. Then the Chinese in Dorm 19 immediately started calling people, and many people rushed downstairs together to find the attackers. But as soon as they got downstairs, they realized they had fallen into a trap. There were 3 or 4 times as many Russians downstairs waiting for them. In the first group, basically each person was swarmed by several Russians. The least severe case was one person being beaten by four Russians. Some Iranians and Vietnamese who came to try to break up the fight were also beaten by them (still without regard for male or female!). Many of these people were injured too — fractures, heads split open, blood everywhere, ears torn open — all of that was considered minor! Then they gathered more than 20 people and used the fire stairways on both sides of the building to outflank their way up to the 11th and 12th floors, searching room by room, and as soon as they found a foreigner, they beat them!
After this, the Chinese contacted Chinese students in the other dormitories through the network. On our way to Dorm 19, we were ambushed. Many Russians smashed beer bottles over our heads. There were police — 2 or 3 surrounding one person, pinning him against a car and beating him with batons. Many people were sent to the hospital right there and then.
The next morning, the police took away more than 10 Chinese students, but not a single one of the attackers who had beaten people at the time was arrested! At noon on the 19th, all of us foreign students went to the school to protest. After 3 or 4 hours of negotiations, the vice president, the president’s assistant, and officials at various levels made guarantees to us. After we wrote up a summary of the situation and submitted it upward, they promised to resolve this matter within 2 or 3 days, and solemnly guaranteed our personal safety during the period before the matter was resolved! Please remember this: they made a solemn guarantee! But just now, four hours ago (it is now 2 a.m.), another group of about 100 people gathered at the entrance of Dorm 6 (a dorm mainly for newly arrived foreign prep students). Not only were they throwing things at the rooms, smashing glass and wrecking things, they were also shouting abuse. Words like “fucChina” were far from rare. We have records of this. More than one person used all kinds of equipment — repeaters, tape recorders — to record those words, and some people also used cameras to record their siege of the dormitory. We have ironclad evidence!
Please note that one hour before this happened, the counselor from the Education Office of the Chinese Embassy in Ukraine was meeting with us, telling us to stay calm and not further escalate the situation. The meeting had barely ended, and before the counselor had even gotten into his car to leave, news came that that side was under siege again! Can this be blamed on us? The words had barely left our side, and then a similar incident happened again over there. We really have shown tremendous restraint! With my personality, I absolutely would not tolerate this kind of thing happening, but for the sake of resolving the problem properly, all I could do was hold a stick and a kitchen knife in my hands while persuading everyone not to go to Dorm 6, persuading everyone to stay at home.
I think all Chinese people are like this — every single person is holding back the anger in his heart. Otherwise, the persuasion of just one or two of us would have been useless! For example, in the afternoon, after we finished negotiations at the school, everyone was already heading back to the dorms one after another, when suddenly we got a phone call saying that another Chinese person had been beaten not far from the protest site we had just left. More than 100 of our male students immediately turned back. When we got there, we found out that while we had been negotiating, a robbery had happened in the small woods not far from where we were negotiating: a Chinese male student had been robbed, his mobile phone and money were all taken, and he was even forced to drink alcohol, leaving him lying on the ground. It was other Russians who discovered him and informed the Chinese.
By the time we got there, he had already been taken away by ambulance￣At that point everyone was extremely agitated. Just then some clueless Russian happened to pass by nearby, said something and made some gesture — I didn’t see clearly myself, but they said it wasn’t anything good — and so a fight started￣They beat that Russian until his neck and face were covered in injuries￣I also know that in this matter we were in the wrong, and shouldn’t have hit someone in a moment of agitation, but at the time everyone was too worked up, and nobody could stop it! It was the same at night: if everyone had really lost control of themselves, then in the end there would still have been bloodshed. But everyone used tremendous self-restraint to control their emotions and made enormous concessions! I hope our concessions have not been in vain!
I’m a little emotional right now, so what I’m saying may not be very clear￣please forgive me, but everything I’ve said is true! I can guarantee it! I went through it personally! Please believe me!
010－65961130
This is the phone number of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I hope everyone can call this number and express your concern for the personal safety of your Chinese student friends or family members studying at KPI (the abbreviation of our school). Let them feel how serious this situation is for the current foreign students, so that the problem can be resolved as quickly as possible and our safety can be protected as soon as possible! Thank you!
This is the report for the first day. We’ve already agreed￣today (it is now May 20, 2003) at 10 a.m. we will continue going to the school to protest! I will inform everyone of the situation as soon as possible￣I am very disappointed in the embassy·I am also one of the Chinese at KPI, and I experienced and participated in the whole incident from beginning to end. When we were assembled that afternoon, everyone’s view of the embassy was that it was cowardly. And the small meeting that night only confirmed that.
The embassy’s attitude and handling of this matter greatly affects whether we, as Chinese people, can live here with any dignity.
This is not the first time something like this has happened. Every time, the embassy just says we will definitely do our work, please believe that we are doing our utmost to solve the problem. The problem from the year before last still hasn’t been properly solved even now. On the night of the incident, the embassy personnel of Iran and Vietnam rushed to the scene to work on it, but the Chinese embassy only came out after everyone had pressed them for a whole day, and then said some painless, irrelevant words. Why!?
Right now we are being beaten in our dorm rooms, our rooms are being ransacked, and up to now the attackers are still acting wildly as if nothing has happened. What personal safety is there left to speak of?
Most of us are now staying inside and not going out. Judging from last night’s situation, that is the only thing we can do. But how long are we supposed to hide like this?
Yesterday, at a little after 4 p.m. on May 18, 2003, at Kyiv Polytechnic University in Ukraine (the school I attend), a Chinese student living in room 12-07 of Dormitory No. 19 (19th dorm for short) returned from outside to the dormitory. (Explanation: 12-07 means room 17 on the 12th floor. Foreign students in this dorm are concentrated on the 11th and 12th floors.) When he was entering the dormitory, he was stopped by the gate guard and asked to show his dorm pass. That was normal. The key point is that all of this Chinese student’s documents were complete and in order. The problem was that the photo on his dorm pass had come off, so he had glued it back on himself, and the stamp on it was a little unclear. The guard said his dorm pass was not valid. The student said, then let’s go check with the dorm administrator, because he has records there that can prove my identity. That was also a perfectly normal procedure. But the guard said he would not go, said he simply would not resolve the issue, and absolutely refused to let him enter.
During the argument, the guard dealt with him in an extremely unreasonable way, basically like a thug. Our student kept insisting on verifying the actual facts. In the end the guard and our fellow countryman got into a physical fight, and the guard beat him. At that point someone called upstairs and brought down several Chinese students from above, and they beat up that unreasonable troublemaking guard.
After that, the dorm administrator stepped in and resolved the issue, confirming that everything about that student was in order. The guard also apologized. We thought that would be the end of it, but no! At around 10 p.m., two other campus police officers went to that person’s room and demanded to inspect his passport and dorm pass, but were refused.
Close to 12 o’clock, some girls went to the kitchen and heard some Russians saying things like “left side or right side,” but they didn’t pay attention. Then at around 12:20, suddenly the entire floor lost power. About 3 or 4 minutes later, the power came back.
Just as everyone was about to go to sleep, there was a second blackout. At that time about 5 or 6 Russians rushed into the room next door to that Chinese student’s room (because the Chinese student’s room was already closed and he had gone to sleep, but the people next door were still awake), and beat the three male students and one female student inside. They smashed the computer, refrigerator, furniture, everything. They’re not human — they even beat the girl.
After beating them, they went out. Then the Chinese in Dorm 19 immediately started calling people, and many people rushed downstairs together to find the attackers. But as soon as they got downstairs, they realized they had fallen into a trap. There were 3 or 4 times as many Russians downstairs waiting for them. In the first group, basically each person was swarmed by several Russians. The least severe case was one person being beaten by four Russians. Some Iranians and Vietnamese who came to try to break up the fight were also beaten by them (still without regard for male or female!). Many of these people were injured too — fractures, heads split open, blood everywhere, ears torn open — all of that was considered minor! Then they gathered more than 20 people and used the fire stairways on both sides of the building to outflank their way up to the 11th and 12th floors, searching room by room, and as soon as they found a foreigner, they beat them!
After this, the Chinese contacted Chinese students in the other dormitories through the network. On our way to Dorm 19, we were ambushed. Many Russians smashed beer bottles over our heads. There were police — 2 or 3 surrounding one person, pinning him against a car and beating him with batons. Many people were sent to the hospital right there and then.
The next morning, the police took away more than 10 Chinese students, but not a single one of the attackers who had beaten people at the time was arrested! At noon on the 19th, all of us foreign students went to the school to protest. After 3 or 4 hours of negotiations, the vice president, the president’s assistant, and officials at various levels made guarantees to us. After we wrote up a summary of the situation and submitted it upward, they promised to resolve this matter within 2 or 3 days, and solemnly guaranteed our personal safety during the period before the matter was resolved! Please remember this: they made a solemn guarantee! But just now, four hours ago (it is now 2 a.m.), another group of about 100 people gathered at the entrance of Dorm 6 (a dorm mainly for newly arrived foreign prep students). Not only were they throwing things at the rooms, smashing glass and wrecking things, they were also shouting abuse. Words like “fucChina” were far from rare. We have records of this. More than one person used all kinds of equipment — repeaters, tape recorders — to record those words, and some people also used cameras to record their siege of the dormitory. We have ironclad evidence!
Please note that one hour before this happened, the counselor from the Education Office of the Chinese Embassy in Ukraine was meeting with us, telling us to stay calm and not further escalate the situation. The meeting had barely ended, and before the counselor had even gotten into his car to leave, news came that that side was under siege again! Can this be blamed on us? The words had barely left our side, and then a similar incident happened again over there. We really have shown tremendous restraint! With my personality, I absolutely would not tolerate this kind of thing happening, but for the sake of resolving the problem properly, all I could do was hold a stick and a kitchen knife in my hands while persuading everyone not to go to Dorm 6, persuading everyone to stay at home.
I think all Chinese people are like this — every single person is holding back the anger in his heart. Otherwise, the persuasion of just one or two of us would have been useless! For example, in the afternoon, after we finished negotiations at the school, everyone was already heading back to the dorms one after another, when suddenly we got a phone call saying that another Chinese person had been beaten not far from the protest site we had just left. More than 100 of our male students immediately turned back. When we got there, we found out that while we had been negotiating, a robbery had happened in the small woods not far from where we were negotiating: a Chinese male student had been robbed, his mobile phone and money were all taken, and he was even forced to drink alcohol, leaving him lying on the ground. It was other Russians who discovered him and informed the Chinese.
By the time we got there, he had already been taken away by ambulance￣At that point everyone was extremely agitated. Just then some clueless Russian happened to pass by nearby, said something and made some gesture — I didn’t see clearly myself, but they said it wasn’t anything good — and so a fight started￣They beat that Russian until his neck and face were covered in injuries￣I also know that in this matter we were in the wrong, and shouldn’t have hit someone in a moment of agitation, but at the time everyone was too worked up, and nobody could stop it! It was the same at night: if everyone had really lost control of themselves, then in the end there would still have been bloodshed. But everyone used tremendous self-restraint to control their emotions and made enormous concessions! I hope our concessions have not been in vain!
I’m a little emotional right now, so what I’m saying may not be very clear￣please forgive me, but everything I’ve said is true! I can guarantee it! I went through it personally! Please believe me!
010－65961130
This is the phone number of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I hope everyone can call this number and express your concern for the personal safety of your Chinese student friends or family members studying at KPI (the abbreviation of our school). Let them feel how serious this situation is for the current foreign students, so that the problem can be resolved as quickly as possible and our safety can be protected as soon as possible! Thank you!
This is the report for the first day. We’ve already agreed￣today (it is now May 20, 2003) at 10 a.m. we will continue going to the school to protest! I will inform everyone of the situation as soon as possible￣I am very disappointed in the embassy·I am also one of the Chinese at KPI, and I experienced and participated in the whole incident from beginning to end. When we were assembled that afternoon, everyone’s view of the embassy was that it was cowardly. And the small meeting that night only confirmed that.
The embassy’s attitude and handling of this matter greatly affects whether we, as Chinese people, can live here with any dignity.
This is not the first time something like this has happened. Every time, the embassy just says we will definitely do our work, please believe that we are doing our utmost to solve the problem. The problem from the year before last still hasn’t been properly solved even now. On the night of the incident, the embassy personnel of Iran and Vietnam rushed to the scene to work on it, but the Chinese embassy only came out after everyone had pressed them for a whole day, and then said some painless, irrelevant words. Why!?
Right now we are being beaten in our dorm rooms, our rooms are being ransacked, and up to now the attackers are still acting wildly as if nothing has happened. What personal safety is there left to speak of?
Most of us are now staying inside and not going out. Judging from last night’s situation, that is the only thing we can do. But how long are we supposed to hide like this?
