Published: December 25, 2013
A flyer of the equal education right campaign (web photo)
Recently, a number of parents who do not have Beijing household registrations, or hukou, have been frequently questioned by the police for their involvment in the education fairness campaign. The police even asked them to testify against Xu Zhiyong who is charged with “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order.” The volunteers who have promoted fair education for children living with parents in Beijing [without Beijing hukou] hereby issue the following joint statement:
1. Over nearly the last four years, policies allowing children, who live with their migrant parents, to take college entrance exams locally have been promulgated across China except in Beijing and only a few provinces. And it is a result of the education fairness campaign volunteers, people from different sectors of society and related government authorities working together. It is a major step in sharing the dividend of reform and solving livelihood issues for the people, and its import and significance are evident to everyone.
2. Beijing, on the other hand, only allows children living in the municipality without hukou to take exams locally for vocational schools, and this is an insult to, and discrimination against, 470,000 children living in Beijing with their parents who work in the city without Beijing hukou. It is also Beijing municipality’s temporizing answer to the recommendations by the State Council and the Ministry of Education, the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. We resolutely do not accept such treatment, and will continue our campaign for these children to enjoy equal education rights.
Xu Zhiyong, in the street of Beijing thhis spring, called for parents to meet in front of Beijing Municipal Education Commission to press their appeal (photo from his Twitter).
3. Education fairness campaign volunteers have taken part in the campaign spontaneously and voluntarily. We have upheld the principles of being moderate, reasonable, open and lawful. We have made rational expressions in an orderly manner. We have never done anything militant or aggressive, nor have we engaged in any behaviors that broke the law or disrupted social order.
4. As a pro bono legal consultant for the education fairness campaign volunteers, Xu Zhiyong has provided selfless help to us. He has maintained, throughout, that we must express our appeals and obtain our rights rationally and within the legal framework, and he was recognized and trusted by the volunteers across the board. China’s migrant population of 260 million and millions of migrant families with children who moved with their parents [as opposed to children being left behind where their families’ hukou were] will forever remember him and thank him. If he is put in jail for promoting education fairness, it will be an affront to China’s rule of law.
The petition scene on February 28, 2013 (web photo).
5. Any expressions by the parents living and working in Beijing without Beijing hukou that are distorted, misleading, induced, or taken out of context to be used as evidence against Xu Zhiyong are not expressions of our true intentions. Instead, such practices will constitute false charges and framing without fairness, and shall have no legal effect.
We will continue to pay close attention to the Xu Zhiyong case. We hope the government will strictly abide by the principle of “using facts as a basis and using the law as a critierion” and handle the case objectively and fairly. We believe that fairness and justice with prevail, and the fundamental rights provided to the people by the Constitution will eventually be realized.
Please sign your name to support [this statement] by sending your real name, contact phone number and reason for support to kaoinbeijing@sina.cn. Thank you for your support.
(Translated by ChinaChange.org)
Related reading:
“Xu Zhiyong Committed No Crime, I Testify.” Parents who were part of the equal education right campaign in Beijing speak out on video [no subtitles].
The Last Ten Years, by Xu Zhiyong, in which he reviews, among other things, how the equal education rights movement started, its triumphs and regrets.
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