Hong Kong government supporters march to university urging discipline of ‘radical’ students

A pro-establishment group marched to the University of Hong Kong (HKU) yesterday, demanding that the management discipline students who stormed a meeting of the institution’s governing council a week ago over a delayed key managerial appointment.

About 30 members of Voice of Loving Hong Kong also urged the administrations of all the city’s tertiary institutions to tackle disciplinary problems caused by students.

“The students were radical,” group convenor Patrick Ko Tat-pun, who led his members from HKU MTR station to the university premises, said. “They interfere with [HKU] council affairs. They don’t respect teachers. They resorted to physical and verbal violence. They imprisoned the councillors.

“The university has become a place of political power struggle. The school administration must discipline the students involved.”

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Ko’s group acted after dozens of students disrupted a closed-door meeting of the HKU council on July 28 upon learning it had upheld an earlier decision to defer the naming of a pro-vice-chancellor, for which the university’s search committee was believed to have recommended liberal scholar Professor Johannes Chan Man-mun.