{"id":85870,"date":"2018-09-03T13:06:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=85870 "},"modified":"2018-09-03T13:06:00","modified_gmt":"2018-09-03T13:06:00","slug":"85870-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=85870","title":{"rendered":"Dozens Detained After Clashes Over School Fees in China\\&#8217;s Hunan"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">2018-09-03<\/span><\/div>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2018\/35\/201893e5de7c8e-725d-406e-9584-572b6be3ccd7.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/>&nbsp;<\/div>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Parents protest a hike in school fees in Hunan&#8217;s Leiyang city, where police detained nearly 50 people amid clashes with hundreds of protesters, Sept. 1, 2018.<\/span><\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Photo courtesy of an RFA listener.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Authorities in the central Chinese province of Hunan have detained dozens of people following a mass protest over new schooling arrangements that led to the children of migrants from out of town being charged massively increased fees.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Police in Hunan&#8217;s Leiyang city said they had detained nearly 50 people amid clashes with hundreds of protesters who gathered outside a police station over the weekend.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">They said the 46 people were detained for &#8220;attacking&#8221; the police station and pelting local officials with bottles and bricks as they appealed for calm.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Video footage of the standoff showed police with riot gear facing off with an angry crowd, with a number of plastic bottles on the ground nearby.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Meanwhile, footage of a public meeting seen by RFA showed angry parents in a hall, shouting at a row of public officials seated on a dais.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The protest came after local education authorities announced a massive hike in the effective cost of dormitory accommodation for students in the fifth and sixth year of primary education, local sources said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;The Leiyang city government has farmed out the year five and year six students,&#8221; a local journalist surnamed Zhu told RFA. &#8220;They are being forced to pay more than 10,000 yuan [in dormitory fees] when before it was a little over 2,000 yuan.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;They are entitled to nine years&#8217; free and compulsory education, but they have put the fees up to more than 10,000 yuan,&#8221; he said. &#8220;People here aren&#8217;t rich, and it&#8217;s a bit much for them to put the fees up so high.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Chinese students of all ages are increasingly staying in school dormitories during the academic year, either during the week or full-time, to enable their parents to hold down full-time jobs, often in other cities, to meet family expenses.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">He said the arrests came after &#8220;protesters clashed with police. Nobody died, but some people were definitely injured.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Swift censorship of news<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">A doctor who answered the phone at the Leiyang City Hospital on Sunday confirmed Zhu&#8217;s report.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">He said ambulances from his hospital and others in the city had been called to the scene.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;We were on call and at the scene from Saturday onwards,&#8221; the doctor said. &#8220;A number of hospitals got patients [from the incident].&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">A Leiyang resident who gave only his surname Yang said the authorities had farmed out students for alternative accommodation under a new scheme that allowed them to split classes.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;[Saturday&#8217;s protest] was about the fees, which meant that if your household registration [hukou] isn&#8217;t in Leiyang, you will have to pay fees equivalent to private schooling,&#8221; Yang said. &#8220;They didn&#8217;t even make it clear whether it had to be an urban hukou, or whether people from the countryside around Leiyang [would qualify for the lower rate].&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Online comments had also complained of unsafe levels of formaldehyde in recently renovated dormitories, Agence France-Presse reported.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Government censors moved swiftly to delete social media posts about the incident, AFP said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Yang confirmed these reports.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;The parents suspect that the [formaldehyde] readings would be over [the legal limit],&#8221; Yang said. &#8220;Yesterday&#8217;s clashes happened because a lot of people are affected, and the authorities are now shutting down [online posts] about this.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><br \/><\/p>  <p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/clash-fees-09032018132416.html\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">For detail please visit here<\/span><\/a><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <div>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;Police in Hunan&#39;s Leiyang city said they had detained nearly 50 people amid clashes with hundreds of protesters who gathered outside a police station over the weekend.They said the 46 people were detained for &quot;attacking&quot; the police station and pelting local officials with bottles and bricks as they appealed for calm.&lt;\/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}