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Education in Hong Kong
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Letters | Does Hong Kong government listen to public opinion any more?

  • Used to be that government spokesmen would always respond to public comments which involved their departments. That is rarely the case now

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Hong Kong commuters wait for a bus in Central on December 15, during the closing days of a year dominated by the coronavirus pandemic and tightening state controls. Photo: Martin Chan
Letters
It isn’t often that one reads a letter in your newspaper that encapsulates one’s views entirely, but the one published last Wednesday titled “Listen to public opinion to solve grievances” (December 23), from Roy Wong of Repulse Bay, was exactly that.

Mr Wong wrote that the Hong Kong government would do well to read and respond to grievances aired in your newspaper and others. This used to be the case before 1997. As far as I remember, a government spokesman would always respond to letters which involved their departments. Sometimes, the replies were just to acknowledge what had been written and, at other times, an appropriate response was promised.

Now, everything that is written seems to be mostly ignored, making the ordinary Hongkonger feel completely helpless when it comes to trying to be a useful member of society who can influence events.

My particular recent example concerns a letter you kindly published on December 4 which, among other things, referred to the two teachers who have been deregistered for life; one for devising a lesson plan designed to give young students an understanding of the meaning of free speech, but which had independence as one of the topics, and the other for giving an erroneous reason for the onset of the first Opium War.

For two teachers to be banned for life in Hong Kong from practising what, for them, was no doubt a vocation which they were passionate about, seems to me the height of vengeful and cruel behaviour, especially when simple warnings would have sufficed.

04:55

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However, nobody from the government has had the decency to respond to my letter.

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Like Mr Wong, I look forward to the day when ordinary people can make suggestions which the government responds to and even acts upon.

Chris Stubbs, Discovery Bay

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