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HOSTILITY: Graffiti on the walls of Ms Wang's family home in Qindao, in eastern China, reads 'Kill everyone in the family' and 'Kill traitors'. -- PHOTO: AFP
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WASHINGTON - A CHINESE woman studying in the United States said she has become the victim of threats and intimidation for her role during a recent campus protest against China's crackdown in Tibet.
Miss Grace Wang, from the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao, had tried to mediate in a demonstration between pro-Tibet and pro-China students at Duke University, where she is an undergraduate.
'Trying to mediate between Chinese and pro-Tibetan campus protesters, I was caught in the middle and vilified and threatened by the Chinese,' she wrote in the Washington Post on Sunday.
'The Chinese protesters thought that, being Chinese, I should be on their side,' she wrote.
The day after the demonstration, a photo of Miss Wang appeared on an online forum with the words 'traitor to your country' in Chinese emblazoned across her forehead.
Her identification number and contact information were posted, along with directions to her parents' home.
She said she has received threatening phone calls and e-mail messages, and is currently under police protection on the university campus.
One e-mail to her reportedly said: 'If you return to China, your dead corpse will be chopped into 10,000 pieces.'
'It has been a frightening and unsettling experience,' Miss Wang wrote in the Post. 'But I am determined to speak out, even in the face of threats and abuse. If I stay silent, then the same thing will happen to someone else some day.'
In an interview with The New York Times, she said: 'Those people who attack me so severely were the ones who hurt China's image even more.'
The 20-year-old said her only intention was to get the two sides at the protest to talk to each other, and she did not support Tibetan independence.
'I understand why people are so emotional and angry; the events in Tibet have been tragic. But this crucifying of me is unacceptable. I believe that individual Chinese know this. It is when they fire each other up and act like a mob that things get so dangerous,' she said.
Miss Wang has also been slammed for having written 'Free Tibet' on the back of American student Adam Weiss during the protest.
In her Post article, she said: 'I did this at his request, and only after making him promise that he would talk to the Chinese group.'
Reports said that her high school in China has revoked her diploma, and her parents' home has been vandalised and faeces dumped on the doorstep.
Her parents have gone into hiding, she said.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
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