For thousands of university professors and teachers in Hong Kong, the coming weeks will be a nervous time as they prepare for a new academic year.
In just a month’s time, universities, schools and even kindergartens across the city will be placed under unprecedented scrutiny as they resume classes for the first time after the national security law passed in July, amid calls for the “bad apples” among teachers to be purged.
Teachers and schools have come under scathing attack from government officials and the pro-establishment camp since the anti-government protest movement roiled Hong Kong a year ago. In language reminiscent of China’s Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976, professors and teachers have been widely blamed for “poisoning” young minds with an allegedly heretical and radical agenda, and for producing a young generation antagonistic towards the authorities.
Just in the past week, two academics active in politics have been dismissed. This took place the same week as the arrests of four student activists on national security charges and the disqualification of 12 pro-democracy candidates for the legislative election.
Benny Tai, a law professor and one of the founders of the 2014 “umbrella” occupy movement much vilified in the Chinese state press, was fired by the University of Hong Kong on Tuesday. Tai was jailed last year on public nuisance charges for leading the civil disobedience movement.