Hong Kong protests: Baptist University students threaten to besiege president’s office again if he fails to condemn arrest of pupil
- Students’ union posts on Facebook plan to stage another protest surrounding varsity president’s office, hours after some pupils vandalised the premises
- Alumni urge head of journalism department to resign, though he expresses disappointment over police action and seeks release of arrested pupil Boaz So
Students of Hong Kong Baptist University have threatened to besiege the varsity president’s office again, outraged by what they consider a failure of the institution to support a campus reporter who was arrested while covering anti-government protests over the weekend.
In a joint petition launched late on Monday night, some former students have also urged the head of the university’s journalism department to step down over the incident.
The tensions have been triggered by the arrest of Boaz So, a third-year journalism student, after police found a nine-inch knife in his bag in Fortress Hill on Sunday evening.
So said he was covering the protests for the school’s publication that night, and he used the knife for cutting mooncakes to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival last week. He was released on a HK$500 (US$64) bail on Monday evening.
Hundreds of Baptist University students marched on the campus on Monday afternoon, following which dozens of them vandalised the building that holds varsity president Roland Chin Tai-hong’s office.
