{"id":59817,"date":"2016-10-03T19:39:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T19:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=59817 "},"modified":"2016-10-03T19:39:00","modified_gmt":"2016-10-03T19:39:00","slug":"59817-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=59817","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong University \\’Won\\’t Take Action\\’ Over Independence Banner on China\\’s National Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

2016-10-03<\/span><\/p>

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Screen shot of banner calling for Hong Kong independence hung in protest at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (pictured) and other universities on China’s National Day, Oct. 1, 2016.<\/span><\/p>

 RFA<\/span><\/p>

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A top Hong Kong university said on Monday it wouldn’t take action against students who hung a pro-independence banner on its campus to mark Chinese National Day, in spite of calls from the city’s chief executive to sanction any talk of independence in schools.<\/span><\/p>

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University<\/span> of Hong Kong vice-chancellor Peter Mathieson said the banner, which read “Hong Kong independence,” had been removed because it was unauthorized, however.<\/span><\/p>

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“If those banners are hung without permission, then we have the right to take them down,” Mathieson told reporters. “That’s what happened at the weekend [and] as far as I know, that’s where it stops.”<\/span><\/p>

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Similar banners, which were provided by the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party (HKNP) appeared in several higher education institutions as dignitaries celebrated the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>

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Most were rapidly removed.<\/span><\/p>

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HKNP convenor Chan Ho-tin said the banners were provided to students, who chose to hang them up themselves.<\/span><\/p>

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“All their actions – the execution, the operation – are carried out by the students,” Chan said, adding that the party planned to “cooperate” with students on future actions too.<\/span><\/p>

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He added: “National Day is not a day for celebration, but a humiliation to Hong Kong.”<\/span><\/p>

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‘Not mature adults’<\/span><\/p>

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The banners also appeared at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Hong Kong Baptist University, The City University of Hong Kong, the Education University of Hong Kong, Lingnan University, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, local media reported.<\/span><\/p>

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Some community colleges and a public housing project also took part in the action.<\/span><\/p>

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Pro-Beijing academic Lau Siu-Kai said the banners may upset the ruling Chinese Communist Party, which has slammed any talk of independence in the former British colony.<\/span><\/p>

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But he told the Apple Daily newspaper that the activists were “only students and not mature adults.”<\/span><\/p>

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The city’s Education Bureau warned that the pursuit of independence for Hong Kong goes against its mini-constitution, the Basic Law.<\/span><\/p>

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“Educational institutions must take some responsibility for the students’ actions,” it said in a statement.<\/span><\/p>

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Chief executive Leung Chun-ying called on the city to unite behind its current political system in his National Day speech, only to be interrupted by shouts from pan-democratic politicians calling on him to resign.<\/span><\/p>

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No reason to celebrate<\/span><\/p>

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They were escorted out of the venue by security guards. However, most of the pan-democratic camp boycotted the event.<\/span><\/p>

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Former Occupy Central student protest leader Nathan Law, 23, said the event was no cause for celebration, citing Beijing’s human rights record.<\/span><\/p>

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“As long as they don’t recognize that what they are doing is wrong, we shouldn’t go and celebrate this kind of holiday,” Law told Agence France-Presse.<\/span><\/p>

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Outside the venue, a group of protesters led by pan-democratic lawmaker Leung Kwok-hug held up a replica of a coffin inscribed with the words “In memory of the People’s Heroes.”<\/span><\/p>

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Elsewhere, some 50 people staged a pro-Beijing demonstration, playing the national anthem and shouting “oppose Hong Kong independence!”<\/span><\/p>

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Beijing<\/span> has repeatedly warned that “separatist” ideas won’t be tolerated in the former British colony, and candidates in last month’s Legislative Council (LegCo) elections were forced to sign a declaration rejecting independence.<\/span><\/p>

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In the end, several candidates were barred from taking part in the election, with officials citing their openly stated support for independence.<\/span><\/p>

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Leung’s administration is believed to have acted on instructions from Beijing officials, and also called on the city’s schools to punish any talk of independence among students, threatening teachers with deregistration.<\/span><\/p>

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A recent opinion survey showed that almost 40 percent of young people in Hong Kong favor independence for the city in 2047, when existing arrangements with China expire.<\/span><\/p>

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Many younger voters cite the erosion of Hong Kong’s traditional freedoms of speech, publication and judicial independence, including the cross-border detentions of five sellers of “banned books” and a recent attempt by the Justice Department to secure jail sentences for former leaders of the 2014 Occupy Central pro-democracy movement.<\/span><\/p>

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For detail please visit here<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<div>University of Hong Kong vice-chancellor Peter Mathieson said the banner, which read "Hong Kong independence," had been removed because it was unauthorized, however.<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}