Activists in Hong Kong are calling on educators, parents, and alumni to form online advocacy groups for students ahead of the start of classes next month, after a recent informal poll revealed that nearly 90 percent of almost 20,000 respondents endorsed school strikes in solidarity with Hong Kong’s ongoing protest movement.
The online poll was conducted by the pro-democracy party Demosisto, which itself grew out of the student group Scholarism, where prominent activist Joshua Wong launched his career. Of 19,473 respondents, 89 percent said they supported boycotting classes, though 77 percent said they would only take part if the strike rallies were peaceful.
A majority of 58 percent picked September 2nd, the first day of school, as the date of the first student strike, and 46 percent said they were willing to continue the strike indefinitely until protesters’ demands are met.
The poll was promoted online in widely followed Telegram group created by Demosisto called “Channel for Mass Secondary School Student Strike in September,” though given the anonymous nature of the platform, it’s impossible to say whether all respondents were students.
Still, the poll results have spurred Demosisto to encourage secondary schools to form so-called concern groups to bring like-minded student activists together.
So far, 21 such concern groups representing secondary schools across Hong Kong have already sprung up, complete with their own social media channels.
The purpose of the groups is to consolidate opinions within communities on how to pursue student strikes, for instance through surveys. They can also directly mobilize groups of people for “uncooperative actions,” according to one such concern group maintained by Munsang College students.
University students are also jumping on the boycott bandwagon, with students’ unions from all 14 universities in Hong Kong releasing a joint statement last week condemning alleged police brutality and calling for student, worker, and market strikes.
Meanwhile, inauguration ceremonies and orientation camps, which have long been freshman tradition at the beginning of the academic year, are already being called off at universities across the city as student unions choose to divert manpower away from campus activities and towards the city’s ongoing protest movement.
Government officials, unsurprisingly, aren’t enamored with the idea, with Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung taking to Facebook to called the plans for secondary student strikes “destructive.”
“A school is a place for education where students should be protected. Students should be free from political interference,” he said.
