More than 50 PNG students studying in China have condemned the shooting of UPNG students last Wednesday.
Shenyang, Nanjing and Beijing PNG Students Associations all have pledged their support towards their colleagues back home.
Shenyang PNG Students Association president Tony Ware, a former University of Technology graduate, told Loop PNG: “It’s never right for armed police to shoot citizens of any democratic country who are exercising their democratic rights to freedom of speech.”
Ware’s colleague, president of the Nanjing PNG Students Association, Yol Donigi, said: “This is the second time in PNG that students have shed their bloods for the love of their own country when speaking out and staging their democratic right.
“We are taking our stand abroad with the students back in PNG and strongly condemn the Government’s reactions and police shooting of students, as we believe in students being the foundation of the nation’s development in all aspects.”
Donigi, the 2010 and 2011 SRC president of Lae’s National Polytechnic Institute, said: “The development and future of the nation depends on human resources, and these are the very students that were shot and traumatised by the police shooting.
“In one mind with the university students in PNG we speak one voice from Nanjing, China, that the government must respect the democracy of the country and rule of law.”
He said the Royal Papua New Guinea was commissioned with pledges to support the people.
Apart from the PNG students, Donigi told Loop PNG that they also received support from other Pacific Islanders studying at the Southeast University in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, especially those from Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga.
Shenyang students association has more than 30 members while the Nanjing group has 20.
(Shenyang PNG Students Association showing support for their colleagues in PNG. Also with them was a Kenyan representative, pictured on the left.)