Four American Educators Stabbed in Park in Northeast China, Say US Media and Officials 

People visit a business street on a hot day in Beijing on June 11, 2024. (AFP)
People visit a business street on a hot day in Beijing on June 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Four American Educators Stabbed in Park in Northeast China, Say US Media and Officials 

People visit a business street on a hot day in Beijing on June 11, 2024. (AFP)
People visit a business street on a hot day in Beijing on June 11, 2024. (AFP)

Four American educators from a small Iowa university were injured in a stabbing attack in a public park in northeast China's Jilin province on Monday, according to Chinese and US government officials.

China's foreign ministry on Tuesday said the incident was a random attack and that it would "not affect normal people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States".

Iowa Representative Adam Zabner told Reuters his brother was one of the victims from Cornell College in Iowa.

"My brother, David Zabner, was wounded in the arm during a stabbing attack while visiting a temple in Jilin City, China," he said.

"I spoke to David... He is recovering from his injuries and doing well. My family is incredibly grateful that David survived this attack."

The group had been visiting a temple in Beishan Park when they were attacked by a man with a knife, he added.

"The police have preliminarily judged that this was a random incident but an investigation is ongoing," China's foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters at a daily briefing on Tuesday.

"All the injured individuals were immediately taken to the hospital and were given appropriate critical care, no one's life is in danger," Lin said.

China's foreign ministry said it would continue taking effective measures to ensure the safety of foreigners in China.

A video of people lying on the ground in a park covered in blood was circulating on X on Monday, though no trace of the images could be found on Chinese social media.

Reuters was able to identify the location of the video based on Chinese characters written on a wall, the wall's structure and the layout of the path, but it was not able to confirm when the video was shot.

A few remaining posts about the incident on the Chinese social media platform Weibo questioned widespread censorship of the incident in official media.

A US State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement that they were aware of reports of a "stabbing incident" in Jilin, China, and were monitoring the situation.

The educators from Cornell College were on a teaching exchange program with a partner university, Beihua, in Jilin City.

"We are working through proper channels and requesting to speak with the US Embassy on appropriate matters to ensure that the victims first receive quality care for their injuries and then get out of China in a medically feasible manner," Iowa's Congress representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks wrote on X.

China's President Xi Jinping this year pledged to invite 50,000 young Americans to China for study programs to boost people-to-people ties, but a State Department Level 3 travel advisory to China warning of possible arbitrary detention and exit bans remains in place.

There are currently fewer than 900 American exchange students studying in China compared to over 290,000 Chinese students in the United States, according to US data.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."