2015-05-07
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A poster protests a planned visit by PLA officers to the Chinese University of Hong Kong campus, saying it would pose a direct threat to academic freedom, May 7, 2015.
RFA
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, scene of the first major pro-democracy rally that kicked off a 79-day Occupy Central campaign in the former British colony, has postponed a planned visit from the Chinese military after vocal opposition from students, it said.
Calls have been growing among students at the university to cancel the event, which critics said was “inappropriate” in run-up to the sensitive anniversary of the 1989 bloodshed, when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ended several weeks of student-led pro-democracy protests with machine guns and tanks.
“Please be informed that the mutual visit and recreational event with the PLA Hong Kong garrison scheduled for May 8, 2015 has been postponed,” the Chinese University of Hong Kong said in a statement on its website.
It said such visits between university students, who are invited on a tour of the PLA barracks, and Chinese soldiers, who have visited all of Hong Kong’s universities, had been going on since 2007.
“This year, members of the PLA Hong Kong garrison were to have visited … for communication and networking with students, as well as ball-games of various sorts and a tour of the campus,” the statement said.
“But in view of the fact that some people appear to have misunderstood the original intent of the activity, after mutual consultations between the PLA Hong Kong garrison and the university, we have decided to postpone it,” it said.
Starting point of suffrage protests
Thousands of Hong Kong students converged on the Chinese University of Hong Kong, known colloquially as the Chinese U, on Sept. 22 at the start of a week-long boycott of classes in protest at Beijing’s decision to limit electoral reforms.
Some 13,000 students crowded into the main concourse of the university on the first day of the strike, not far from a permanent replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue raised by protesting students in Tiananmen Square before the movement was crushed by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in June 1989.
For many, the statue gives a focus to the role played by the Chinese University in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, sparked last year by the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s rejection of public nominations of candidates in the 2017 elections for the city’s next leader.
A student surnamed Hui said the PLA’s presence on campus was “inappropriate” ahead of the anniversary of the military crackdown on 1989 protesters that left, hundreds, possibly thousands, dead or maimed.
“The Chinese U campus is a democratic place, and June 4 is approaching,” the student said. “The PLA carries a lot of the responsibility for the June 4, 1989 incident.”
“The PLA should have no connection with universities, not under the banner of so-called unity or friendship,” Hui said.
