Unruly Hong Kong student protesters have crossed the line, abused the public’s trust and must be watched carefully
John Chan says the increasingly violent protests by University of Hong Kong students are shameful and should not be tolerated by society
Three years ago, I attended the Hong Kong University Students’ Union centenary dinner on campus. The dinner, attended by many notable alumni, including former Legislative Council president Andrew Wong Wang-fat, was disturbed by a demonstration by a group of 20 or so HKU students and young alumni. They were protesting against the student union president’s handling of a case involving a union employee, who they claimed had been unfairly dismissed.
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During the entire evening, the protesting students and alumni surrounded the head table where the president of the Students’ Union was seated, chanting slogans and refusing to leave. They disturbed not only the dinner proceedings, but also the functions held after the dinner.
After the incident, I wrote an article criticising the behaviour of the demonstrating students and alumni. I also mentioned similar disturbances at other events by protesters whose sole purpose was to attack specific figures who they had taken a dislike to, and who happened to be attending the events.
In most cases, the event itself had nothing to do with the issue they were protesting about.
Such irritating disturbances have escalated over the past three years
One young alumni who took part in the demonstration at the centenary dinner wrote back and, without denying any wrongdoing, asked whether I was aware of their anger over the matter.
According to these young people’s weird logic, it seems that they were entitled to vent their anger and frustration over a particular issue at any event – causing a disturbance to hundreds of innocent guests in the process – just because the person in question was attending.