If you thought pro-Beijing firebrand and prominent crotchety-ass busybody Junius Ho had better things to do with his position as a Hong Kong lawmaker than pester a bunch of teenagers, you clearly don’t know Junius Ho.
In a press conference yesterday, Ho announced the formation of a special team to inspect some 100 secondary schools that have been flagged as “showing signs of class boycotts” — a political stunt apparently aimed at making more or less the same statement as an old man shaking his fist at the neighborhood kids from his porch.
The so-called “signs” include things like students wearing black shirts, chanting slogans, and handing out fliers around the school — in other words, students engaging very publicly in class boycotts, as they have over the past few days.
In addition, Ho also named six schools that showed “more serious” signs of students and staff boycotting classes, claiming (sans explanation) that such activities are illegal.
“I wouldn’t encourage people to skip school, so [not discouraging it] would be very passive of them,” Ho said of Hong Kong’s secondary schools.
He singled out the Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity, a creative arts high school in Kowloon Tong, saying people with black shirts were spotted entering the school. Apple Daily reports that during the press briefing he also played video clips showing students hanging banners from the school walls and chanting slogans such as “reclaim Hong Kong, the revolution of our times.”
Ho said he would be handing over videos and photos of the so-called illegal activities, along with a report, to the Education Bureau.
HK01 reports that the school released a statement yesterday rejecting Ho’s claims that class boycotts are illegal, adding that black t-shirts are actually part of the school’s uniform.
The school also accused the lawmaker of trying to disrupt the educational atmosphere, and told the outlet that students and staff at the school felt their safety was threatened because a number of people had been spotted loitering outside in the past week.
Pupils and former students of the Lee Shau Kee School continued their class boycott as normal today, delivering a stinging defeat to Ho’s fledgling initiative. (Just kidding, we can’t even pretend to take this thing seriously.)
Students & alumni of Lee Shau Kee School of creativity form an #antiELAB human chain, while neighbouring Holy Family Canossian College lead the chants. The creative college is one of the skls targeted by lawmaker Junius Ho for class boycott campaign. #WeConnect #HongKongProtests pic.twitter.com/mBnwrdsulk
— Frances Sit (@frances_sit) September 6, 2019
Shortly after Ho’s press conference, education sector lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen told journalists outside the Legislative Council that he had also received a number of complaints from other schools about Ho’s team and their actions, adding that their loitering showed no respect to students, parents, or teachers.
Ip said he hoped the Education Bureau would take steps to protect schools from any “unnecessary political interference,” Headline Daily reports.
Meanwhile, students at Lingnan University want to give the pugnacious pro-Beijinger the ol’ heave-Ho.
More than 100 students went to the university’s administration building last night to present a letter to President Leonard Cheng Kwok Han urging the school to remove Ho from the university council. Ho was appointed to the council in 2015 by then-Chief Executive CY Leung (who is also widely despised and prone to bizarre anti-protester initiatives), sparking protests at the university over fears of political interference in the city’s universities.
Cheng responded to the students’ letter, saying that because Ho was appointed to by the chief executive, only the chief executive has the power to remove him, Headline Daily reports.
This isn’t first time Ho has been the target of anti-government protesters’ ire. Back in July he was filmed getting chummy with a group of men in white shirts who were believed to have taken part in the vicious mob attack on protesters and commuters at Yuen Long MTR station.
Protesters responded by vandalizing his office and desecrating his parents’ graves.
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