The academic community has been rocked by claims that senior government officials tried to gag dissent at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Institute vice-president Bernard Luk Hung-kay accused the secretary for Education and Manpower, Arthur Li Kwok-cheung, of pressuring the institute to merge with Chinese University.
He also said a senior official had asked the institute to sack four academics for writing articles critical of the government's education reforms.
These accusations touched a raw nerve because any attempts to undermine Hong Kong's core values - including freedom of expression, academic freedom and institutional autonomy - would set alarm bells ringing.
There was a furore in 2000 after Hong Kong University pollster Robert Chung Ting-yiu claimed that the then chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, had interfered with his polling work. The HKU council ordered an inquiry, which led to the resignation of vice-chancellor Cheng Yiu-chung.
That incident showed that the public has zero tolerance for interference with academic freedom. Thus Professor Luk's allegations must be investigated. The Legislative Council's education panel will hold a special meeting on February 28 to discuss the subject.
Another core value is press freedom. Yet, while the Institute of Education incident attracted wide media attention, a recent occurrence at Asia Television was almost completely ignored. On February 4, the pro-Beijing ATV cancelled the airing of an episode of Newsline on the chief executive election, citing 'technical difficulties'. Newsline is an English-language political chat show that airs on Sundays.
The programme's two guests were Allen Lee Peng-fei, a delegate to the National People's Congress, and Albert Ho Chun-yan, a legislator and chairman of the Democratic Party. Asked later if he knew why the show had been cancelled, Mr Lee said: 'I think you know what happened ... I understand a lot of people know what happened.'