Hong Kong’s pro-establishment lawmakers push for surveillance cameras in classrooms to monitor teachers’ speech

Recording teaching sessions would reveal if students were on receiving end of ‘subversive remarks’, Liberal Party chairman Tommy Cheung says

Meanwhile, with opposition lawmakers now largely absent, a motion of thanks to city leader Carrie Lam passes on final day of debate over policy speech

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Pro-establishment lawmakers on Friday argued installing cameras in classrooms could reveal if teachers made ‘subversive remarks’. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 1:37pm, 22 Jan 2021Updated: 11:27pm, 22 Jan 2021

Surveillance cameras should be installed in Hong Kong schools to monitor teachers’ speech, pro-establishment lawmakers argued on Friday as they wrapped a three-day debate of the city leader’s policy address.

Discontent over the education system took centre stage during the Legislative Council session, though a motion of thanks for Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s November policy speech was approved by 40 lawmakers.

Two independent members of the chamber – Cheng Chung-tai of localist party Civic Passion and medical sector representative Pierre Chan – voted no.

While no such motion passed in 2019, last year’s mass resignation of the opposition camp in protest of Beijing’s decision to disqualify four incumbent pan-democrats means Legco is now almost solely occupied by pro-establishment lawmakers.

In her November policy address, city leader Carrie Lam lamented the significant number of students arrested during the 2019 months-long social unrest. Photo: Sam Tsang

Many of that group on Friday called on authorities to step up the monitoring and regulation of teachers. Liberal Party chairman Tommy Cheung Yu-yan, an adviser to the Executive Council, Lam’s de facto cabinet, suggested placing CCTV cameras in classrooms would reveal if teachers had made “subversive remarks”.