Demolition of Peking University message boards sparks outrage
BEIJING (AFP) — Message boards that once symbolised free speech and thought at China's prestigious Peking University have been demolished, sparking outrage among some students, state media reported Friday.
The notice boards on the triangular square known as Sanjiaodi, where students once posted short essays, poems and other messages, were removed as part of a "clean-up" campaign ahead of the university's 110th anniversary, Xinhua news agency said.
Before the brutal military crushing of the ill-fated 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests, the area was the centre of student activism and was covered with "big character posters" denouncing the ruling communist regime.
"These notice boards had not served as places for the exchange of thoughts and ideas since the late 1990s, and were instead filled with commercial advertisements for apartments and training courses," Xinhua quoted a university spokesman as saying.
"More and more students are using the Internet to spread information and opinions, so there is no need to keep them," he said.
But some students said reading messages on the notice boards was an important part of their campus life and they were outraged they were demolished.
Others said on university Internet forums that the boards provided a platform for students to express their views and gave them a sense of identity so they should have had a say in deciding whether to remove them or not.
"The boards have been there for decades so how could they be removed in such a hurry?" said a recent graduate.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of peaceful protesters were killed in the streets of Beijing when the military marched on Tiananmen Square in June 1989, quelling six weeks of unprecedented demonstrations that were largely organised from the dormitories surrounding Sanjiaodi.
