2014-09-10
A man (L) who heckled pro-democracy activists is confronted by police outside St. Bonaventure church in Hong Kong, Sept. 9, 2014.
AFP
The United Nations’ human rights agency is to investigate whether or not Beijing has done enough to ensure full democracy in Hong Kong, as activists continued their campaign in the face of China’s vetoing of public nominations in 2017 elections.
The U.N. Human Rights Committee, in a public session on Oct. 23, will examine the latest proposals to allow Hong Kong’s five million voters to elect the next chief executive from a list of candidates pre-qualified to Beijing’s satisfaction, spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssel told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday.
Hong Kong’s beleaguered pro-democracy movement has vowed to push ahead with protests after the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislative body, ruled out the public nomination of candidates in the 2017 race for chief executive of the former British colony.
Class boycott
Students in the city have vowed to boycott classes for a week beginning Sept. 22, in protest at the NPC’s ruling.
But the pro-Beijing Alliance for Peace and Democracy has set up a telephone hotline for anyone wishing to inform on students promoting the boycott, sparking fears that an ideological “thought police” is springing up on the territory’s university campuses.
“I have received a lot of complaints from college principals and lecturers criticizing the Alliance’s hotline, and its attempt to turn staff and students into ‘secret police’,” Ip Kin-yuen, a lawmaker representing the education sector, told RFA on Wednesday.
“[They say] this is an attempt to intimidate any colleges with a large and obvious class boycott, and a bid to increase pressure on their principals,” Ip said.
“The Alliance shouldn’t be interfering in the affairs of the colleges; it won’t help its advocacy for [Beijing’s] political reform proposals,” said Ip, who is also chief executive of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union.
“Such a thing has never happened in Hong Kong before, secret informing on students and colleges,” he said.
Meanwhile, Alliance founder Chan Yong told reporters the hotline had been aimed at informing parents about their children’s activities.
“This is meant to give everyone a choice about what their children, minors, particularly high-school students, are doing, and it’s in everyone’s interest,” Chan said.
Privacy
Hong Kong’s education secretary Eddie Ng said he was against high-school students boycotting class.
“We will be dealing with the question of whether the hotline infringes students privacy, in gathering information about which students and schools hold boycotts, in due course,” Ng told reporters.
The row over student activism comes as pan-democratic politicians said they would boycott the Hong Kong government’s own consultation process on reforms proposed by Beijing’s National People’s Congress (NPC) standing committee on Aug. 31.
“The first round of consultations in May was a total waste of time, because the proposals we submitted weren’t accepted,” Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau told RFA. “The NPC just came up with its own version.”
“So why would we want to waste more time on a second round?” she said.
“We won’t be taking part in the government’s nonsense, and we are calling on citizens not to get involved either.”
