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Owen Fung

Ng Kang-chung

Political veterans and novices alike at a controversial student forum on independence for Hong Kong were forced to retreat into a glass-walled cubicle as they complained about being shut out as a result of “political censorship”.
Thursday’s forum, at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, had been planned in the garden outside the academy. But student organisers said they were told the area was closed for maintenance.
Their bid to shift to a TV studio as an alternative was also rejected, they said.
The academy denied allegations of censorship, but asked the organisers to end the forum and vacate the premises, saying it was an “unauthorised meeting” as the students had not applied to use any venue there.
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The forum followed a recent warning by Wang Zhenmin, the new legal chief at Beijing’s liaison office, that those calling for independence were violating Hong Kong’s Basic Law.
He also said any “large-scale discussion” prompting people to act on those calls could be considered “sedition” and “treason” under the Crimes Ordinance.
Despite the academy’s objections, the students went ahead with the forum. The speakers sat in a ground-floor cubicle normally used as the student union’s office, while the audience sat or stood out in the lobby hall.
The three-hour discussion was jointly organised by the student unions of the academy and Shue Yan University.

The students had originally planned to meet at Shue Yan but the university rejected that on the grounds that the topic of the forum was “too narrow”.
Invited to speak were Edward Leung Tin-kei of pro-independence localist group Hong Kong Indigenous, Chan Ho-tin of the Hong Kong National Party, which advocates independence, People Power lawmaker Albert Chan Wai-yip, and Democratic Party central committee member and Southern district councillor Au Nok-hin.
Chan Ho-tin said: “That we have to conduct the forum in such poor conditions shows clearly that Hong Kong’s core values of free speech and academic freedom have been eroded because of mainland influence.
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“That explains why we have to stand up and defend ourselves and make Hong Kong independent before it is all eaten up by China.”
Academy director Professor Adrian Walter denied political censorship but rejected the forum as an “unauthorised meeting”.
He said: “All I know is that there is no application that has been received from students to use a venue in the academy.”
Academy student union chairman Ryan Lo said: “Usually we just need to inform the school management through Whatsapp that we would like to use a venue to hold an event and that would be OK. I have never heard that we needed to fill in forms to apply.”
Meanwhile at a separate forum on “one country, two systems” at the University of Hong Kong, legal scholar Professor Albert Chen Hung-yee warned that if calls for independence continued to grow, the only outcome would be the mainland fully taking over the city’s governance.
Professor Chen, also a member of the influential Basic Law Committee, said the city’s current constitutional arrangement with the mainland was in the best interest of all Hongkongers.
“Calls for independence are beyond the bottom line of the central government,” he said.


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(From left) Albert Chan, Au Nok-hin, student leader Lam Chun-yip, Edward Leung and Chan Ho-tin spoke in a makeshift venue. Photo: Dickson Lee

(L-R)People Power’s Legislator Albert Chan Wai-yip; Democratic Party’s Au Nok-hin; Shue Yan University Students' Union Lam Chun-yip; Hong Kong Indigenous Edward Leung Tin-kei; and Hong Kong National Party leader Chan Ho-tin; attend a seminar on Hong Kong independence at the Academy for Performing Arts in Wan Chai. 14APR16 SCMP/ Dickson Lee

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