Hong Kong Design Institute vandalised for second straight day after school chiefs fail to show up for meeting with students

School bosses had promised to meet students over the handling of campus security camera footage of 15-year-old girl whose body was found in sea

Masked youths trash computers and projectors in labs and classrooms while carpet of faculty office is set on fire

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Masked students vandalise classrooms at the Hong Kong Design Institute. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 8:38pm, 30 Oct 2019Updated: 10:49pm, 30 Oct 2019

The Hong Kong Design Institute’s campus in Tiu Keng Leng was vandalised for the second straight day on Wednesday, and the faculty office briefly set on fire, after school management failed to show up for a meeting with students as promised.

A crowd of about 200 had gathered at the institute at 1.30pm, the scheduled time when school chiefs had promised to meet students over the handling of campus security camera footage of a 15-year-old girl whose body was found in the sea in September.

“The school is passively downplaying the situation, our principal is pretending to be dead again,” the students chanted, in a reference to an incident on Tuesday when school chief Dr Ong Lay Lian took ill at a dialogue session.

At about 2pm on Wednesday, a handful of masked youths trashed computers and projectors in the school’s labs and classrooms. About an hour later, more than 20 police officers and six vehicles briefly showed up at the school’s entrance, where students had built makeshift barriers, and then left.

The faculty office was briefly set on fire. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

The eighth-floor faculty office was set on fire at around 3.30pm, according to a security guard.

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