UPDATE: The doctor has been confirmed as a Vietnamese American named David Dao and the petition has already exceeded 100 000 signatures.

United Airlines excessive use of force in the removal of an Asian American doctor from a flight has gone viral in the overseas Chinese community.

Overseas Chinese media caught on quickly about the story and went to work with headlines such as:

Translation: “They chose to remove me, because I am Chinese!”, foreign airline oversold tickets and use excessive force to remove a 69 year old Chinese doctor off their plane! Images of his bloodied mouth and unconciouness has incited outrage…

Soon more and more media regarding the incident was being shared

A petition was also made is making it’s aways around social media

Translation: #Petition# Whitehouse Petition: We would like there to be a deep investiation into the United Airlines incident, once this petition reaches 100 000 signatures action must be taken. This petition was created by Zhang Zishi (Winner of the Diana Award, Chinese youth representative in parliament). I have already signed it.

Here is a link to the petition: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/chineselivesmatters-calling-federal-investigation-united-airlines-incident-10th-april-2017?from=timeline&isappinstalled=0

As of this post, it already has more than 40 000 signatures.

24,810 people have signed a #ChineseLivesMatters petition calling for investigation into @united incident on White House website Tue pic.twitter.com/7W06dVzIdS — Global Times (@globaltimesnews) April 11, 2017

Even the Chinese government’s own Global Times have retweeted the petition. It’s likely to reach the 100 000 target very soon.