Hong Kong’s teachers say they are living in fear as the city’s democracy protests rumble on, with some not daring to discuss the movement and others anxious they could even lose their jobs if they are caught supporting it.
The education sector has always been at the vanguard of the financial hub’s pro-democracy fight, with teachers and students taking to the streets in 2012 to oppose a government order for schools to teach classes that praised China’s communist history while criticising democracy movements.
And since the recent wave of protests started last June, police said out of the 6,500 people arrested, about one third are students and around 80 are teachers.
Millions have come out on the streets in demonstrations sparked by opposition to a now-abandoned proposal to allow extraditions to mainland China.
But they morphed into wider demands for greater democratic freedoms and police accountability in the starkest challenge to Beijing since the former British colony was returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
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Primary school teacher Nelson is facing disciplinary proceedings for writing Facebook posts critical of the police, telling AFP he is under investigation by the education bureau following an anonymous tip.