NYU Shanghai recently reported that students were beaten and detained by Chinese police. In the aftermath, the university warned students that such incidents can happen to everyone and that if detained there may be a 24-hour window of disconnection from the outside world that the university can do nothing about. Some legal experts say this is frightening and that students may be reluctant to study in China if similar incidents continue to occur.
File photo: New York University Shanghai
Nine students from NYU Shanghai, six of them Americans, were detained by Shanghai police on two separate occasions last Friday night (March 12). The university said it was part of a drug crackdown in Shanghai.
One of the two occasions was at a bar, and the other at a private birthday party. The former involved two American students, a man and a woman. The boy was kicked in the head and the girl suffered bruises when plainclothes police tried to make an arrest, according to The Washington Post. The student, who requested anonymity, said, “The male student was actually kicked in the head by the police and bled. They didn’t have an interpreter and didn’t know what was going on. They were just trying to call the public safety department at the NYU Shanghai campus. The female student was beaten for trying to escape the two plainclothes officers who were not wearing police signs.”
The second occasion involved seven students, from the United States, Finland, Morocco and Malaysia. “They were released after being tested negative for drugs and 11 to 16 hours each,” the Washington Post quoted school spokeswoman June Shih as saying, “The university doesn’t know why the Chinese Communist authorities detained each of them at this birthday party. ” She argued that “the police are focusing on one specific individual.”
A March 18 letter from VOA to NYU Shanghai requesting confirmation of these facts went unanswered by press Time.
Fearful use of violence by plainclothes police
“The use of violence in arrests is the part that concerns me more,” Julian Ku, a Hofstra University law professor, told Voice of America. “The fact that these officers weren’t in uniform and they didn’t show any identification is the disturbing part, because that’s the part where you can’t know whether you’re being arrested by police or beaten by hoodlums, and that’s very frightening.”
For his part, Jerome Cohen, a distinguished emeritus professor at New York University School of Law, believes it may have been a misunderstanding caused by language communication difficulties. “It’s a misunderstanding that happens in every country.” He believes, however, that the incident “should be addressed immediately and clarified quickly.”
The Washington Post quoted sources familiar with the matter as saying that the two American students who were assaulted “have Parents who work for the U.S. Department of Defense.” And the incident comes on the eve of a high-level U.S.-China dialogue.
NYU Shanghai refuted the Washington Post’s implication of the incident in U.S.-China geopolitics. “The Washington Post article implies that our students may have been targeted for political reasons because some of them are U.S. citizens,” said an email sent to all students by David Pe, the university’s dean of students, in the early morning hours of March 18 BST.
“Based on our current knowledge of the incident, we have no evidence to support this belief. This is because, first, bar staff and patrons were also detained in the drug sweep, and second, this sweep is consistent with other law enforcement operations that we are familiar with, or have previously known about, that target drugs.” Peng Hanzhi said in an email.
A Chinese student at New York University, who asked not to be named, said that if what happened is indeed what the email says, “then I think it’s that the incident is being over-interpreted by the media at this coincidental moment.”
But he said the truth of the incident remains unclear, “It’s not clear what exactly happened between the two sides, whether it was violent police enforcement or whether the person in question was taken to task for not cooperating with the work.”
The Washington Post quoted the State Department’s reaction that “China’s legal system can be opaque, enforcement of local laws can be arbitrary,” and that China’s judicial system “does not enjoy independence from political influence.”
A State Department spokesperson said, “We are aware of the detention and subsequent release of a number of U.S. citizens in Shanghai, China. We stand ready to provide all appropriate consular services.”
Once detained only at the mercy of Chinese police?
The email from Peng Hanzhi shows that NYU Shanghai took the potential negative impact of the outbreak on its students seriously, telling students that every student could be exposed to such incidents in the future, reiterating the importance of following the response procedures provided by the university in similar situations, and reminding everyone to be prepared because there is very little the university can do in the first 24 hours of the incident.
“It is unlikely that the school will be able to communicate with you directly in the first 24 hours.” The email said. “The police are not allowed to intervene with the school during the period from the time a person is taken into custody until the drug test results come back. The police have a 24-hour period to investigate and make a decision on whether to charge. At some point during the 24-hour window, the police will decide whether to charge or release the detainee. In our past experience, if a university or consulate intervenes in a case before a definite charge decision is made, it delays the process. When a firm charge is decided, the police will contact the student’s university. Only then can we intervene on the student’s behalf.”
“This is typical of the Chinese legal process.” Hofstra University law professor Ku Ju-Lun said. “So it’s a little scary.”
It’s really a 24-hour black box, says Professor Ku Ju-Lun, “where the school is basically saying, we can’t help you.”
Yu Ping, an NYU alumnus and independent commentator, said, “It makes sense for NYU, as a pioneering higher Education institution with a U.S.-China partnership, to be the first to offer help to its own students when they encounter local police enforcement; and it’s not against Chinese law to deal with the police within 24 hours. Even if the university has friction with the police as a result, it is still promoting greater compliance with its law enforcement.”
China’s Criminal Procedure Law provides that the time between a detainee being detained and being sent into custody “shall not exceed twenty-four hours at the latest.” It also states that “the detainee’s Family shall be notified within twenty-four hours of the detention.”
NYU Shanghai was founded in 2012. The New York University Shanghai campus was founded in 2012. The New York University pandemic has had a significant impact on universities around the world. In February, NYU Shanghai announced a record number of 18,713 applicants for fall 2021, a 12 percent increase over last year. Of those applicants, only 2,246 were from China, with a 53 percent increase in international student applicants from outside the United States.
But Professor Goujoulen said the cost-benefit analysis could change, “because if this kind of event continues, I think students will be less likely to want to go to China, and that will be a problem for NYU.
The Washington Post said, “Some students and parents have complained about a lack of support from school officials during detentions.”
NYU Shanghai acknowledges that the students detained in this incident, their families, felt they received less support than they would have liked. “The school is looking at the handling of the process to find out how it could have done better,” Pang Hanzhi’s email said.
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