Education First teachers, foreign students held in China on drugs charges
- 16 foreigners, including students, among 19 people detained in Jiangsu province narcotics crackdown
- One foreign national is in criminal detention, indicating imminent formal charge
A total of 16 foreign teachers and students are among 19 people detained in China’s eastern province of Jiangsu in an anti-narcotics crackdown, according to police.
A statement by the Xuzhou public security bureau’s Quanshan branch on Wednesday morning did not elaborate on the nationalities of the foreigners, or what drugs were involved, but it is known that some of the teachers are from the Xuzhou branch of Education First (EF).
One foreign national is in criminal detention – indicating that a formal charge and prosecution is imminent – while the rest are in administrative detention which carries a maximum term of 15 days.
The police statement said officers had “acted on a clue and successfully cracked a case involving narcotics” earlier this month, with those detained testing positive for drugs.
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“So far 19 people, including 16 foreign nationals, implicated in the case have been caught. Seven of them are foreign teachers in an education centre and the nine others are students,” the statement said.
Beijing News reported on Tuesday night that the foreign teachers were from the Xuzhou branch of EF and, on Wednesday, EF issued a statement on its Weibo social media account to say the contracts of the teachers involved would be terminated.
“Education First expresses its deepest regret that some teachers from the Xuzhou centre abused drugs in non-working hours,” EF said.
“We are cooperating with the relevant authorities in their investigation and also conducting our own internal investigation. We show zero tolerance for any illegal behaviour and absolutely forbid employees to possess or use narcotics or controlled drugs.”
According to online news portal Thepaper.cn, the Xuzhou education bureau will inspect all extracurricular training centres in response to the involvement of foreign teachers in the drugs case.
Phone calls to the Xuzhou public security bureau went unanswered on Wednesday morning.
News of the detentions upset some internet users in China, who urged training centres and education authorities to step up background checks of foreign teachers.
“There are a limited number of foreign teachers in one training centre and yet seven of them are [accused of] abusing drugs. Was the training centre serious when it verified their backgrounds before hiring?” one online commenter said on the microblogging platform Weibo.
Drug use and possession of even a small amount – including marijuana – is subject to fines and administrative detention of a maximum 15 days in mainland China. Possession of large amounts, drug dealing and accommodating drug users are all criminal offences.
Earlier this month prosecutors in Nanjing, capital city of Jiangsu, said marijuana abuse had become a “serious problem” for young people in China, blaming overseas influence for the growing popularity of the drug.
The Nanjing prosecutors said they had handled 10 drug smuggling cases since 2017, seven of them involving marijuana. They did not give earlier figures.
