UBC recommends its exchange students leave Hong Kong
Credit to Author: Joanne Lee-Young| Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2019 00:32:03 +0000
The University of B.C. is recommending that any of its students currently enrolled at four universities in Hong Kong leave the city.
A federal travel advisory hasn’t changed, but some students may be on school campuses that have turned into fortresses under siege as clashes between police and protesters intensify after several months of unrest.
UBC said on Friday all its students enrolled in exchange programs in Hong Kong had been contacted, and nine of the 32 had already departed the city.
“Our recommendation to them is that they leave,” said UBC’s vice-provost, international Murali Chandrashekaran in a statement.
Simon Fraser University said since its partner institutions in Hong Kong have closed campuses and suspended classes, it is “assisting” its 17 students who are there “in returning early.”
The University of Victoria’s director of student recruitment and global engagement, Carolyn Russell, said its “faculties, schools and departments are reaching out (to its eight students at three universities in Hong Kong) to determine how their situations are impacted, next steps and travel plans.”
She added the federal travel advisory for Hong Kong is “to exercise a high degree of caution due to ongoing large-scale demonstrations,” but it hasn’t been updated since Oct. 2 and remains “unchanged at a risk level 2.”
“There is no restriction on UVic students, staff or faculty traveling to a level 1 or 2 country,” she said, citing the university’s off-campus risk management policy.
The judgement calls come as the heads of nine universities in Hong Kong issued a joint statement late on Friday saying “several universities were under protesters’ control” and that “the government response has so far not been effective.”
Students from mainland China and Taiwan started to leave Hong Kong campuses mid-week when several universities suspended classes for the rest of the term.
By late Thursday, schools in the U.S., Australia and the U.K. were either urging or requiring their students on exchange in Hong Kong to return home.
The exodus began earlier in the week when a general strike snarled major roads and transit lines, causing chaos that ended with riot police chasing protesters onto campuses.
Police shot rounds of tear gas and used water cannons while protesters piled furniture, built makeshift barricades, and scattered nails and bricks on pathways to block entrances.
Protesters have gone into war-mode by stockpiling food and batteries, setting up sleeping and cooking areas in gyms and cafeterias, and preparing smoke bombs.
There are scenes of protesters and their supporters employing what have been described as medieval tactics, including watch towers, catapults, and bow and arrows.
Meanwhile, authorities including police and government officials, but also citizens watching with growing concern, have condemned the universities for inciting dangerous violence.
China’s state-run China Daily said in a tweet: “Universities in #HongKong, which are supposed to be the breeding grounds for future leaders, are being turned into battlefields by law-breaking students. The city’s police said they have intelligence suggesting that schools were being used as weapons factories in the past few days.”
Benjamin Cheung, a UBC lecturer in psychology, responded, “I can’t explain how strongly I feel about this,” to a tweet from a Hong Kong-based academic, which said: “If you have students or colleagues from Hong Kong at your uni support them, even just to ask them how they are doing. They are feeling stressed and guilty as they watch things unfold from afar.”
Cheung, who also got attention this week for his analysis of polling done by a Hong Kong university showing 70 per cent of respondents believe police have used excessive violence compared with 40 per cent who believe protesters are too violent, said students and staff at UBC who grew up in Hong Kong or have family there or are exchange students and others “have been very deeply impacted by a lot of emotions.”
“I have had students cry talking about what is happening. Some had been on the front lines in Hong Kong before starting school here (in September),” said Cheung. “The thing I hear (people) express is guilt, anger, helplessness, and there’s nothing you can control.”