"Suicide" Announced

Now we come to the students' own story of the incident. On learning of the arrests, they sent two representatives to go with the university authorities to see Commander Chu at Garrison Headquarters. Their demand to transfer the arrested to court within 24 hours was rejected. Nor was the Academic Supervisor admitted to see the four students.

So, the students decided to stage a three-day strike as a protest against these illegal arrests, but they deferred this action as the authorities promised to transfer the arrested students to court on 29th October.

On the evening of the [unclear: 29h] the students were waiting in suspense for the fulfilment of the promise when, after inquiring, the Academic Supervisor returned in tears and reported the "suicide."

An urgent general meeting was assembled in the morning of the 30th. The report in the South-east Daily, saying "Communist Yu Tse-san, fearing condemnation, committed suicide in gaol" angered the students. What evidence was there to condemn Yu as a communist? And the students had reason to believe that Yu did not commit suicide. Action was swiftly decided upon.

On the afternoon, two thousand students marched to the court prison where the surviving three had just been transferred. Only 20 representatives were admitted to see them. The rest marched off "in good order" (Sun Pao) to the Garrison Headquarters to see the body of their dead school-mate. En route, they encountered at every 50 yards two soldiers with bayonets and grenades. But they did see Yu's body after all.

On that day they began to strike, protesting the illegal arrest and demanding the public trial of the surviving three.