As a massive, nonviolent, civil disobedience resistance movement continues to gather momentum in Chinese-occupied Southern Mongolia, Mongolian schools across the region were empty on September 1, 2020, the first day of the new academic year.

Mongolian parents from different places reported via video clips that campuses and classrooms were empty thanks to the well-planned total school strike organized by Mongolians against the Chinese Central Government’s plan to replace Mongolian with Chinese as the only language of instruction in the region.

“Today, Shiliin-hot No. 1 Mongolian Middle School is empty. No students, not even a teacher’s car, can be seen on campus. I am not sure what happened,” a Mongolian parent said in mockery in a short video clip.

“This is Bairin Right Banner Mongolian Elementary School. There are some police in black uniform, some police in blue uniform, and some other police with their police vehicles, which some teachers are inside. But no parents and no students showed up,” a Mongolian resident of Daaban Town, capital of the banner, said in a short video, suggesting that the protesting teachers might have been taken into police vehicles.

“Today is September 1, 2020. This is the Hingaan Road Mongolian Experimental Elementary School. No students showed up. No parents sent their children to school today,” another Mongolian resident of Hohhot, capital city of Southern Mongolia, reported via a video message.

With the schools emptied out, the Mongolian students organized themselves to take to the streets to demand the protection of their mother tongue.

“We will not return to school, we will not return to school!” middle schoolers from eastern Southern Mongolia’s Tongliao municipality shouted on the street.

“The mother tongue that nurtured us is a part of our culture that must not be forgotten." Another group of Mongolian middle school students from the Horchin Left Wing Rear Banner marched toward their protesting parents, who welcomed them with roaring cheers.

Mongolian students from the eastern Southern Mongolia’s Hulun-boir League gathered in the league capital Hailaar City despite the rain to take a “mother tongue oath”: “With our blood and bravery, let us defend our mother tongue.”

Nearly a thousand students gathered in the Inner Mongolia Normal School Affiliated High School campus in Hohhot and chanted, “Let us defend our legal rights” and “Let us defend our culture and heritage.”

Fearing the increasingly widespread protest and total school boycott, the Chinese authorities are increasing their police presence in Southern Mongolia. A short video taken by a Mongolian resident of Hohhot shows that hundreds of heavily armed riot police were waiting for orders in the city’s main square–Xina Hua Square.

According to some posts published on social media, government officials and Communist Party members of Mongolian ethnicity have been ordered to send their children to school by September 3, or else they will be fired or expelled from the party. Any Mongolians who are on social benefits will also automatically become ineligible for renewal if they do not send their children to school by the same deadline.

Visit here for more protest videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/ovormongolmin/videos