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Disturbing news from Chinese University
Shanghai University, one of the most prestigious universities in China, plans to collect information about non-heteronormative students, calling it the mental health status check. The institution's authorities are not answering any questions. The students are concerned.
After 12 years of relatively peaceful treatment of the LGBT community, China is changing its politics. In 2021 for the first time in a decade, Gay Prides didn't get permission to be organized. Homosexuality was also recognized as a mental health disease, against the current knowledge and all worldwide health organizations.
A document recently leaked on social media concerns a survey that students at Shanghai University were expected to receive from their faculties. The survey was to examine the "ideological positions" of students. Faculties were also supposed to report on the number of LGBTQ + students.
The post with photos of the document first appeared on the Chinese Weibo platform. It was posted by the user Babai Ywan Li, who thus expressed his concern, but that post has already been blocked. Later, someone shared the same article on Twitter. It was retweeted tens of thousands of times since then.
Shanghai University is one of the best institutions in the country. About 55 thousand students study there. The university authorities have not confirmed whether the document is genuine, but Chinese students are already worried about their safety. In comments and posts on social media, not only Chinese comment that the whole thing is terrifying. There were also voices that the Chinese authorities wanted to create a list of LGBTQ + people. Foreigner commentators see three possible scenarios: first, the least probable is that it's just the demographic stats, second assume that the government is trying to localize the activists while third assume, it's the intro to institutionalized discrimination.
Recently the government is starting to treat more strict all the minorities. The most endangered are activists. In the last few days, few feminist and LGBT activists were arrested. The surveys in the Universities seem to be the continuation of this politics.
If you want to read more about this situation, check following links:
Guardian's article
Supchina's article
Thank you for reading,
@papi.mati