Controversy over Ken Tsang’s assault by police just won’t go away
First a school received complaints after posing questions about the case in a liberal studies paper. Then TV chef Maria Cordero was the target of trolls, apparently for donating money for the officers’ defence. Both show how partisan – and crazy – many adults in Hong Kong have become
The assault on Occupy activist Ken Tsang Kin-chiu by seven rogue police officers is a controversy that just won’t go away.
One of its latest casualties is St Francis Xavier’s College, in Tai Kok Tsui, which has had to issue an apology because of the ill-advised manner in which it used the incident to pose two questions in a liberal studies paper. Another victim is Maria Cordero, a former singer and currently a popular TV chef.
The first exam question asks how the court’s conviction of the seven officers has upheld the rule of law. The second asks how a mass rally by 30,000-plus officers in support of their seven jailed colleagues has undermined the rule of law.
The questions so infuriated a police union that it complained to the school, leading to an official apology. Critics claim the questions were biased. I am not so sure. A clever student can legitimately argue the police rally did not undermine the rule of law – or that it did, as the case may be. I can see why some officers may be offended, but the police union has no business interfering in the school and should have stayed away.
Meanwhile, poor Cordero finds herself the online target of pro-democracy trolls this week, quite inexplicably. She took part in a new TVB talk show whose title may be roughly translated as Family Matters. It’s a kind of Orpah-like chats in which Cordero and her son broke down in tears after claiming to have been physically abused by her ex-husband.
What has that to do with Tsang’s assault? Apparently, Cordero once donated money to the police, presumably in support of the legal defence of the seven officers. Someone posted a comment on Tsang’s Facebook page mocking her that the officers had the right to beat up Tsang but not for her ex-husband to beat her up. This started a whole chain of nasty responses against Cordero.
I assume Tsang didn’t post the initial message. That would be in incredibly bad taste, though some of his pro-government critics claim he did. But I wouldn’t have allowed the vicious messaging to continue if it were my Facebook page.
All these have been, or could have been, a learning moment for our students. If nothing else, they show how partisan – and crazy – many adults in Hong Kong have become.
