Chinese Government Expels German Student from The Country after His Human Rights Film

This story happened to German student, who completed his degree in China. David was suddenly forced to leave the country because of the project he worked on. It was dedicated to the human rights of Chinese lawyers. In this post, the Typical Student team is going to share with you David’s story.

David’s Investigation

David Missal - a graduate student from Germany - studied journalism in China. During his education at Tsinghua University, Beijing, David was working on the film. It was a part of class project, which focused on human rights of lawyers. Missals task was showing the way they were persecuted by country. This topic attracted David after he read a couple of posts about local lawyers and their families.

It was exactly what David wanted to cover. The student got professor’s approval and began interviewing the lawyers. Within the investigation, David went to Human province to visit one of them, named Lin Qilei.

What Happened to The German Student in China?

"The authorities told me that since I conducted some activities that weren’t covered by the student visa, they couldn’t give me the student visa for the next year," says David.

Basically, the student was told to leave Beijing (and China at all) because of the film he worked on. For these reasons, the Chinese government refused to extend David’s visa. It happened earlier than expected.

According to David, June 2018, he did submit the student visa renew application. Still, the answer of Chinese authorities said that they want to do some more investigations. Normally, this process takes nearly 10 days but for David, it was extended to 2 months.

One More Accident

There was another accident, which happened to David in China. He was waiting for an answer about student visa renewal. David was called to come and collect his passport. Still, as soon as the student arrived, he heard another thing: suddenly, the student had 10 days to leave China.

As expected, Davis asked what the reasons were and the answer was: "You know what you did."

Although David studied at the university under an international exchange scholarship, he wasn’t able to complete the degree.

“I didn’t really know what to say, even though I knew there was the possibility that something like this could happen. I was just speechless,” comments the student.

What Does China Say About David’s Departure?

There’s an editorial published in Global Times. It’s state-run and informs that the fact the student was departed from China “reflected the fundamental differences in the social perception of politics and law between China and Germany.”

The paper that the government’s decision was made due to the fact that “Beijing is merely handling foreigners who don’t follow rules in China based on the law.”

What Is David Doing Now?

Today David stays in Germany and thinks of studying in Taiwan one day. He still wants to work as a journalist in China but doesn’t believe it’s possible.