Source:
https://scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3028163/why-should-hong-kong-universities-tolerate-destructive-lawbreaking
Comment/ Letters

Why should Hong Kong universities tolerate destructive, lawbreaking students?

Student protesters at Baptist University in Kowloon Tong are blocked by security guards as they head for the principal’s office on September 18. The protesters felt the university had failed to adequately support a campus reporter who was arrested while covering the anti-government protests. Photo: Dickson Lee

Over the past weeks, multiple video clips have gone viral showing a small band of university students mouthing profanities at their professors, restraining their movements and deliberately damaging university property.

These students, whatever their cause, show no respect for their professors and have destroyed facilities at the very universities at which they receive their education. They should be reprimanded, suspended or even expelled in accordance with university regulations.

It defeats the pedagogical objective of tertiary education if universities continue to be cowed by these unruly and lawbreaking students.

K.Y. Tan, North Point

Young protester’s injury should be wake-up call

I am writing in response to the report (“Students demand school apology after boycott pupil injured in police chase”, September 4) on Tai Po secondary school students being chased by the police. I felt furious when I learned about this. Both the police and radical protesters are to blame.

I am an alumnus of the injured student’s school. Seeing my dearest teachers and former schoolmates upset, I urge protesters to stop using violence and the government to face the issue bravely. It should not allow these accidents to happen to students.

I am against the passing of the extradition bill and joined several peaceful marches against it, but I always remind myself that violence will not solve the problem. The government has no reason to listen to a gang of barbarians. Now, the government sees all who oppose the bill as radical. Do we really want a Hong Kong in which we solve problems by fighting in the street?

Meanwhile, the government should give the city a rational response. Why would Hong Kong students get involved in this movement? Hong Kong students are known to be devoted to their studies.

Students are not protesting because they have no school work – in fact, they face loads of pressure – but because this issue is so big that everyone, including students, feel they have to play a part.

Chan Oi-ching, Fanling

Protesting students should study history and law

If Hong Kong students protest on Mondays, they should spend each Monday learning about constitutional law, the separation of powers between the legislature, judiciary and executive branch, Westminster parliament, why King Charles I lost his head, why the queen of Great Britain is banned from entering parliament uninvited, how common law, like morality, rests embedded in every individual citizen waiting to be discovered, why juries are selected from common people, the American constitution and the Australian constitution.

This can be taught in an exciting and age-appropriate manner. This knowledge will help clarify the inherited liberties which the young are fighting to defend.

Nils Marchant, Ocean Reef, Australia