June 9 is the first anniversary of Hong Kong’s Anti-extradition Bill Movement, aka Water Revolution. June 12 is the first anniversary of Hong Kong police’s coercive crackdown on protestors in Admiralty who protested against the Fugitive Offenders amendment bill proceedings at the Legislative Council. This year, on these two landmark dates, there were even more protests and assemblies, all of which had been overall peaceful, in various districts of Hong Kong striving for our five demands. However, Hong Kong protestors were faced with more intensive and coercive crackdown, intimidation, violence, assault, humiliation and arrests by the police, which might have been, throughout this year, increasingly intervened, or even directed, by mainland China’s national security agents. Sad stories emerged day after day, night after night. As of today, over 600 arrestees were faced with riot charges, which can mean up to ten-year imprisonment. This reign of terror has not just stopped as such. On the night of June 12th, a pro-CCP ex-district-councillor deliberately assaulted peaceful protestors in Kwun Tong with a fruit knife, causing serious bodily harm to the victims and leaving considerable blood stains in the street. All-round totalitarian brutality has evolved into systematic terrorism which goes on unchecked. Amidst such hardships, the spirits of Hong Kong people stay high. We would not speculate to what extent our protests will be useful or worthwhile, but we are certain that our actions are meaningful and on the right side of history.

Obviously many Hong Kong protestors are youngsters or even minors. China might have concluded that the failure of Hong Kong education in the past 23 years had given rise to this year-long freedom movement, so it would like to tighten its grip on Hong Kong education from now on. China has become irrationally nervous and therefore placed a high priority in urgently wiping out all perceived “contaminants” within the education system of Hong Kong. This was unambiguously reflected in the decision of the National People’s Congress of May 28th, which requires national security education to commence in Hong Kong. In fact, even before such a law is passed, recent developments in the education sector of Hong Kong are exceptionally scary.

Several weeks ago, the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority was pressured by China to openly apologize for and cancel a Chinese history public examination question asking “would you agree that Japan did more good than harm to China in the years 1900-1945”, as Chinese officials alleged that there was only harm and no good, and this question should not have been asked. Such an allegation is obviously absurd. More recently, Kevin Yeung Yun-hung, Secretary for Education, surprisingly announced a new mandatory training program on professional conduct for teachers. The program will require all newly enrolled teachers to be trained on their “roles, values and conduct” for at least 12 hours. He further stressed that discussions on politics should not be brought into schools, and all students should be strictly prohibited from chanting slogans, forming human chains and singing political songs.

Heung To Middle School is a pro-Beijing patriotic school historically, but nowadays many of its students have free minds, fortunately. Recently, a music teacher of the school was dismissed because she had allowed (at least had not rejected) students to perform “Glory to Hong Kong” (an iconic anthem of the anti-extradition bill movement) in a music assessment. Many Heung To students could not accept such a rude decision. They bravely formed a human chain outside the school on June 12 and then dispersed after the police warned them of possible crackdown and arrests. However, Kevin Yeung showed no pity on the students and teacher. He supported the decision of this “red” school. He even went on to say that “Glory to Hong Kong” is a song for political propaganda and should not enter schools. When asked whether the song “Les Miserables” (which is another popular revolutionary song in Hong Kong ever since 2014 or even earlier) can be sung by students at schools, he said it depends on the context. What a bitter joke. When he was further asked whether the song “Love Basic Law” (which is a pro-government song) is also a song for political propaganda and should therefore be banned from all schools, Kevin surprisingly said that it is not a song for political propaganda, but promotion of law and order, aka legal education, which is compulsory for every student. His line of thoughts is not only absurd, but bitterly laughable.

In short, from his perspective and from China’s perspective, pro-CCP propaganda would be compulsory education, and anti-CCP expression would be deemed as political propaganda. Accordingly, there will be no more freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and above all freedom for creativity and critical thinking at schools in Hong Kong. Without such freedom, there would be no independent-thinking talents which have been the foundation of stability and prosperity of Hong Kong in the last few decades under British rule.

Nevertheless, most Hong Kong students nowadays have independent thoughts and fearless souls. They can tell what is right and what is wrong. Isaac Cheng Ka Long, born in 1999, who is now Vice Chairman of Demosisto of Hong Kong as well as spokesman for the Secondary Schools Student Action Platform, joined an alliance of trade unions in announcing a plan for a civil referendum to be held on June 20 which will allow Hong Kong people to democratically decide whether or not to launch a general strike against the national security law. The purpose of this civil referendum is to show how strong the opposition to enactment of any national security law imposed by China in Hong Kong would be. Such a joint referendum means that all voters will be free to express their will to support or oppose China national security law and if there should be a general strike. This whole idea and action were again condemned by Kevin Yeung. Kevin stressed that any civil referendum would have no legally binding effect (while this is actually a non-issue for Hong Kong protestors) and that any referendum allowing participation by students to oppose Chinese national security will totally be unacceptable. Actually Kevin’s comment is indeed totally unacceptable, as he is simply demoralizing activities which are totally lawful under existing Hong Kong law.

Administrative neutrality is no longer observed by government officials in Hong Kong. Freedom of speech, expression, choice, demonstration, assembly and strike in Hong Kong would now be vulnerable to indifferent crush by the totalitarian CCP regime.

(Sang Pu, graduate of the University of Virginia with a degree of Master of Laws, is a political commentator and host of talk shows(including RFA) and qualified lawyer in Hong Kong, Taiwan and New York State. He has been writing on topics about Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and international politics and economy at Apple Daily and other media since 2007.)

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