Chinese student association at McMaster University loses appeal, remains decertified after report of on-campus talk to consulate
- Association had been deratified after allegations it endangered students by reporting a talk by a Uygur activist to Chinese consulate
- Club said it had acted out of concern that the event was resulting in ‘immense emotional distress’ of Chinese students
A Chinese student association at a Canadian university that was stripped of its club status over concerns it had monitored campus activities for the Chinese government failed on Sunday to reverse the club’s decertification.
Legal counsel representing the student association accused the student government of “biased assumptions”.
The student representative assembly at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, deratified the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) in September following allegations that it had endangered students by leading a campaign to report an on-campus talk by a Uygur activist to the Chinese consulate in Toronto.
The talk in February by Rukiye Turdush was disrupted and filmed by at least one student. Chinese students in a group in the messaging app WeChat said they also supplied photographs of the event to the Chinese consulate, The Washington Post reported at the time.
A statement posted to the CSSA’s official WeChat account following the event called the talk “absurd” and “anti-China”, and said that the consulate had been notified.
But during a tense hearing before the student union government on Sunday evening, the club’s lawyer, Samantha Wu, said it was an individual student – and not the CSSA – who reported the event to the consulate. The CSSA only signed the statement because it believed “an emergency event was occurring”, she said.