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Thursday, October 10, 2019, 10:29
Education group condemns abusing lecturer at university campus
By Xinhua
Thursday, October 10, 2019, 10:29 By Xinhua

HONG KONG — An education group in Hong Kong on Wednesday condemned radical students' abusing a lecturer at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University campus due to his remarks calling for an end to violence.

The Hong Kong Higher Education Convergence expressed in a statement its strong condemnation towards acts by mobs of unsolicited and masked students to besiege Chan Wai-keung, a lecturer for the university's College of Professional and Continuing Education at the classroom where he was lecturing for nearly five hours Tuesday.

The besiege was full of radicals' shouting of obscenities, intimidation and vision-harming shots of laser beams against Chan, even though the college's dean Peter Yuen and associate dean Simon Leung came later for intermediation

The besiege was full of radicals' shouting of obscenities, intimidation and vision-harming shots of laser beams against Chan, even though the college's dean Peter Yuen and associate dean Simon Leung came later for intermediation.

Those masked students repeatedly coerced Chan to apologize for his remarks but were refused.

Chan stressed he opposes violence, respects the rule of law and is proud of being a Chinese.

The abuse came after Chan wrote recently in a commentary for a newspaper suggesting police prosecute mobsters with rioting as part of deterrence efforts to end chaos after a new regulation was enacted to ban face covering in assemblies and processions.

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Freedom of speech is the right granted to all Hong Kong people by the Basic Law and everyone should cherish it, the group said in the statement.

Any civilized society and law-abiding students should by no means assault people because of different political views, the statement said, adding such acts would undermine the reputation of the university.

The group said higher education peers in Hong Kong are deeply concerned that the college's management was obstructing the police to enter the campus for the protection of Chan's personal safety after he reported to the police that his safety was under threat.

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The group urged the university's management to try every means to avoid conflict and protect the safety of faculty and students, saying Chan's post as a lecturer should not be influenced by the incident.

In face of the complication of the society, the group called on all sides to remain calm and restrained to avoid the escalation of conflict, saying it would do no good for the faculty, students and Hong Kong at large.

The group also appealed to political forces to stop infiltrating campus in a bid to let campuses return to peace for students and teachers.

Demonstrations, which stemmed from now withdrawn amendments to two ordinances concerning transfer of fugitives, turned into lasting unrest over the past four months in Hong Kong.

The unrest became increasingly violent and ugly these days, as rioters played the role of vigilantes to beat up, bully or abuse ordinary people who held different views on the current chaos.

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