Subject: CIU of Wisconsin-Madison and IFCSS Helped a Chinese Girl (IFCSS HQ NR-4127)

From: IFCSS HQ <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 11:44:56 -0400

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IFCSS Headquarters News Release No. 4127          May 25, 1993
   CIU of WISCONSIN-MADISON AND IFCSS HELPED A CHINESE GIRL
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Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars (IFCSS)
   733 15th Street, N.W., Suite 440, Washington, D.C.20005
         Tel. (202)347-0017  Fax: (202)347-0018
                Email: [email-masked]

Dear fellow Chinese students and scholars:

     Recently, the Chinese Independent Union of the University
of Wisconsin, Madison and IFCSS helped a Chinese girl who faced
serious charges by the police. A report from the CIU of Wisconsin-
Madison is attached below.

     Although the case has been satisfactorily resolved, we should
draw some lessons from it. Just for curiosity, the girl almost put 
herself into a desperate situation (facing criminal charges and
possible INS deportation which would destroy her life and career).
We should increase our awareness of the law. Secondly, the local
CSS organizations are usually the most reliable and available 
source of help when you get into difficulties. Therefore, you
should keep close contact with the CSS around you and actively
involve in the local CSS activities. Finally, IFCSS is committed
to protect and represent the interests of CSS. We will do our 
best to help you.

     We solute the excellent job the CIU at Winconsin, Madison
has done.

     Thanks for your attention.

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From: (Li Kening) [email-masked]

A girl named H, from SiChuan, who came out last Januaray, told her friend in
a weekend evening about two months ago that she would like to drive a car.
This friend of hers, who himself had a couple serious traffic violations,
took her out in his car. She did not have any instruction nor any permit,
but they went on to the highway.

What happened next you can partly imagine: they were spotted by a cop, even
though it was late into the night. Obviously the cop thought someone was
involved in drunk-driving. But what you can not imagine and turned out to
be very unfortunate was, they did not stop when the squad car was flashing
its lights, and the disfunctional siren of the cop made things worse. The
guy sitting beside H kept telling her that the cop just wanted to pass them!
So the cop followed them for about 5 miles. At this point, not knowing what
was going on in the car, called for back up and two more police cars set up
a road block ahead of them. Apparently the girl was scared to death when
she saw police cars trying to block her. Actually a cop was standing out-
side the squad car with a flash light in his hand, but H could not manage to
stop the car and the cop had to jump away to avoid being hit. This really
got the cops upset, so one of them used his flashlight and smashed her
windshield. By this time she managed to stop the car, but when her wind
shield was smashed, she hastily backed up and hit the police car in the
back. Then she tried to pull forward, this time hit the police car in the
front. The cops had their guns pulled out, hand-cuffed them and throw them
out on the ground for more than one hour before they were brought to the
police station.

They were subsequently released on signature bond. And the girl was going to
be charged with "intentionally harm to police officers" and some other rela-
tively minor traffic related charges. It was hell for the girl during the
last two months. Through a lot of help from the local Chinese Community, the
foreign student advisor, Mrs. Mahi Tandon, her landlord, her advisor and
many others in the University Community, and some of us in Madison, the pol-
ice dropped their felony charge. But the District Attorney is still pushing
for "recklessly endangering other's life" or use it as a chip in the plea
bargain. Being an almost penny-less foreign student, she has of course only
one court-appointed lawyer, who is from Platteville and whose livelyhood
largely depends on in good terms with the police and the D. A., so the
lawyer does not want to go too far in pushing for the police's civil rights
violations/mistreatment in order to get a better plea bargain. We contacted
the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, and they do not have any attention in
helping her. Mrs. Tandon was so surprised when the Chinese cousul, Mr. Wu,
Xiaolong, said Xiaoqiu has to abide with the American law, in a rather
blunt way.

Upon further bargaining and some pressure from us, including the help of
IFCSS, the D.A. finally agreed on the plea bargain which all of us think is
fairly reasonable: H is to be purnished for a Class B misdemeanor, purnish-
able by a fine of up to $500.00, and/or a jail term of up to 90 days. H is
also responsible for the damages of the police cars. In fact, though, she
needs not to be in jail at all, and there is going to be no computer record
about this incident. A group of her freinds are trying to help her finan-
cially.

To Miss H., all is almost over, and she seems ready to carry on her studies
in this country. CIU is still trying its best to help her. But we would like
to take this opportunity to alert members of our community, especially those
who are learnig to drive: follow the law before it is too late. Learning how
to drive with someone who knows what he is doing. We helped H not becasue we
think she was not guilty.

Note: CIU is the Chinese Independent Union at Univ. Wisconsin-Madison.

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*                 IFCSS Headquarters Office                         *
*                 =========================                         *
* President:      Geng Xiao  Assistant to the President: Shi Heping * 
* Vice-President: He Baoping     Executive Director: Zhang Qingsong *
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* In our next News Release, we will announce the Student Activity   *
* Fund coming from the third quarter (Jan.-March, 1993) insurance   *
* promotion. 
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