'Academic freedom' not license to incite

The jailing of young activists Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Alex Chow Yong-kang and Nathan Law Kwun-chung last week by the Court of Appeal has no doubt saddened many. This includes the compassionate judge Wally Yeung Chun-kuen himself, who admitted it was difficult to put young people with aspirations behind bars. It is not hard to understand why the public are now looking forward to the court giving a justified punishment to the initiators and masterminds behind the illegal "Occupy Central" campaign.

There is perhaps one bit of comfort for those who have transformed their empathy for the jailed young men to anger at the initiators of the illegal movement. The District Court will hear the case of Benny Tai Yiu-ting, Chan Kin-man and Chu Yiu-ming on Sept 19 after the three were arrested and charged for their roles in the 79-day street protest that brought some key parts of Hong Kong to a standstill in fall of 2014. The trio each faces three counts related to causing a public nuisance.

It is the business of the court to decide whether the three are guilty or not. But it is the business of Hong Kong to keep our educational institutions, particularly the city's top universities, free from political demagogues. By inciting young people to deliberately violate the law and misguiding students to undermine the rule of law - the cornerstone of Hong Kong's economic prosperity and social stability - those demagogues are deemed by many unfit to continue teaching in university.

Voices urging the removal of those demagogues from their posts in the universities and other educational institutions are growing. The top administrators of those institutions have so far refrained from taking action despite the rising public pressure. This is presumably because of fears that they might be accused of obstructing academic freedom.

But they might have erred on the side of caution. What those demagogues did that led to the disruptive and lengthy street protests in the fall of 2014 has nothing to do with academic activities but everything to do with infringing upon the rights of thousands of innocent citizens and undermining the rule of law.

Maneuvers such as drafting the action plan for the "Occupy" campaign and publishing articles and delivering speeches that incite people to participate in the illegal protests are definitely not part of academic freedom. This unmistakably refers to "the freedom of teachers and students to teach, study, and pursue knowledge and research without unreasonable interference or restriction from law, institutional regulations, or public pressure", according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

(HK Edition 08/25/2017 page12)