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Hong Kong, mainland Chinese students clash at New Zealand university over extradition bill
- A video posted on social media shows three male mainland students at the University of Auckland arguing with and shoving a female student from Hong Kong
- It follows an incident in Australia last week, when scuffles broke out between pro-democracy protesters and mainland students at the University of Queensland
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The University of Auckland is launching a formal investigation into a confrontation on Monday between students from Hong Kong and the mainland over the now suspended extradition bill.
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A video posted on social media shows three male students from mainland China arguing with a female student from Hong Kong in front of a so-called Lennon Wall on campus, where people can paste protest notes.
At one point, the confrontation turned into a scuffle and one of the male students shoved the female student, 27-year-old Serena Lee, causing her to fall over.
“Physically, I am not injured, but inside me I am shocked and shaken,” she was quoted as saying afterwards in an interview with The New Zealand Herald .
“The proposed law in Hong Kong could see the end of the city as we know it and our individual freedom, but I was stunned when people in New Zealand are also trying to shut down our freedom of expression.”
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Hong Kong is in the throes of a political crisis over opposition to the bill, which would have allowed the city to transfer fugitives to jurisdictions it does not have an extradition agreement with, including the mainland. Anti-government protests have taken place weekly for the past two months, some of which turned violent, leading Beijing’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office to hold a press conference on Monday calling for a return to normality.
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