When signing petitions is no longer enough

Sitting in her office at the University of Hong Kong, an outspoken academic made an unexpected decision: not to sign a petition in support of students arrested after a pro-democracy protest.

A month later, Dr Petula Ho Sik-ying decided not to sign another petition, this time expressing disappointment at Beijing's restrictive framework for the 2017 chief executive election.

Ho said she wanted to do more than just put her name on petitions. "[It's insufficient to] just sign it and go back to sleep … I would see that as very hypocritical," Ho, an associate professor at HKU's social work and social administration department, said.

It was then that the city's leading academic on gender and sexuality studies decided that she instead had to traverse a field quite foreign to her - politics.

"I feel terribly miserable seeing how society has changed," Ho said. "I couldn't continue the life I used to live."

And so she co-founded the University of Democracy-to-come group with activist Chan King-fai and policy researcher Anthony Wong Kin-wai.

The group plans to offer weekly lectures exploring the relationship between democracy and other aspects of society - including culture and sex - at Talentum Bookshop in Yau Ma Tei. It held its first lecture last Saturday.