Mac Lam/RFA
In a show of solidarity beyond their years, more than 2,500 Vietnamese elementary and middle school students in a Hanoi suburb have refused to go to class this week to protest against the local government’s decision to build a commercial center on the premises of their schools and near a local market. Some students from three schools in Ninh Hiep commune in the Gia Lam district of Hanoi have returned to their classrooms, but many others have continued the protest they started on Monday, raising concerns among Hanoi education authorities about their right to go to school.
Students leave after attending the first day of a national college entrance examination at Hanoi University of Science and Technology in Hanoi earlier this year. Earlier this week, middle and elementary students staged a protest against the building of a shoppino of center close to the school. More than one million high school students throughout the country attend the four-day-long exam starting on July 1. (Photo: Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP/Getty Images)
The protest began at 9 a.m. on Monday when hundreds of residents and students beat drums and held banners outside schools to protest against the trade center project. State media reported that the students did not go to school because their parents, who are local merchants, forced them to protest to pressure the local government not to build the project on the market’s parking lot.
The roughly 1,400 merchants who work in the market say they will lose business if their customers do not have a place to park their motorcycles and other vehicles.
As of Wednesday, nearly 870 of 1,646 elementary school students had returned to their classrooms, while 300 of 940 middle school students went back to school. The incident is not the first time that residents of Ninh Hiep commune have allowed their children to stay at home to prevent local authorities from building the trade center.
