BEIJING — Students and alumni of several Chinese universities are sounding the alarm over the apparent detention of more than a dozen young labor activists.
Three recent graduates of the elite Peking University have been taken away by authorities, the Jasic Workers Support Group said in a statement late Tuesday. According to the group, witnesses saw one person being “kidnapped” from the Beijing campus, while others in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Shanghai also disappeared.
They were involved in a coalition, led by young Marxist activists, that was founded this summer to show solidarity with factory workers at Jasic Technology, a welding equipment manufacturer in southern China.
Activists in China are routinely “disappeared” by authorities working for the ruling Communist Party, which is wary of any collective action and potential threats to its authority. The government is particularly guarded about campus movements after the 1989 student-led pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square which were ultimately crushed by the military.