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Africans Protest In China Over Death Of Nigerian, Demanding Justice
17 July 2009
Lagos — More than 100 Africans surrounded a police station in the Chinese town of Guangzhou Wednesday afternoon after a Nigerian clothing trader, Emmanuel Egisimba, died during an immigration raid. Reports said he jumped out of a second floor shop window as police mounted surprise passport checks. Other protesters suggested two people had died. It is unusual for foreigners to protest in China. But state news agency Xinhua reported that protesters took the body of the man, who it said was trying to evade police because his visa had expired, to a police station to demand justice. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post said six witnesses confirmed the man had died and its reporter saw a video of him falling and of his body lying on the ground with blood pouring from his head. But a police officer at the scene denied any deaths, Xinhua reported. A press release from the police authorities said a "foreign suspect doing illegal currency exchange" was injured when he broke a window while trying to climb out of the building, and another foreign man was severely injured falling from the building. They had both been taken to hospital. Ademola Oladele, the minister for popular communications at the Nigerian embassy in Beijing, said an official had flown to Guangzhou to investigate the incident. He said: "These people's visas had expired We don't have any details of what went on but we believe he was running away and in the course of the pursuit he died. "If the police have pursued another country's national to the point of death, to me, perhaps there is a bit of heavy-handedness. [These things] should be handled in a humane and dignified way. That's what led to the protest I believe." He added that such a situation could happen anywhere. Oladele said he believed there were around 1,000 Nigerians in China, most of them students and academics or business people. Guangzhou is believed to have around 20,000 African residents. Witnesses said the crowd was mostly Nigerian but included some protesters from other African countries. Many were also angry about tightened visa controls in the run-up to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic in October. Representatives of the African community said they felt harassed by frequent passport checks in their neighbourhoods, China Daily reported. Mo Jun, director of the foreign affairs office under the Guangzhou municipal government, said that Guangzhou has a large population of traders and business people from Africa, reflecting growing ties between the city and Africa. "But some African traders stay here without legal passports," Mo said. In a similar fashion last year, a Nigerian businessman, Ojide John Ekene, was said to be descending the steps leading to a subway metro station to look for some place to urinate when the security men accosted him and began to beat him. He was allegedly hit on the head with heavy iron battens, knocking him to the ground in a pool of his own blood. But the Chinese consulate had said that Ekene fell on the staircase of Yulong building as he tried to run to urinate, adding that in the process he got a heavy hit on his head.
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