HKU must fire Benny Tai for its own good

Legislative Councilor Junius Ho Kwan-yiu launched a campaign last week to gather public support for a petition urging the University of Hong Kong (HKU) management to fire Associate Professor of Law Benny Tai Yiu-ting for poisoning the minds of young students with willful radicalism designed to turn them into lawless troublemakers and tarnishing the university's reputation along the way. The campaign has collected more than 80,000 signatures. It is one thing to teach students knowledge about law and completely another to tell them it is OK to break a law for "justice". Tai has no right to receive taxpayers' money as salary while harming the interests of taxpayers and their families directly or indirectly by brainwashing their children into lawbreakers.

Tai was a principal instigator behind the illegal "Occupy Central" movement in 2014. The protest seriously disrupted public order and normal way of life in several busy districts for 79 days. It also led to hundreds of young students being booked by police for violating the Public Order Ordinance and/or other criminal codes, practically ruining their future because a criminal record can ruin their career prospects. Many people rightly blame him in particular for cajoling so many young people, including university students, into joining the illegal movement in the name of "civil disobedience", practically claiming law-abiding citizens are robots and "civil disobedience" can get one away with any offense.

As a matter of fact, Tai began propaganda for the illegal movement long before he joined two other "learned men" in publishing the "Occupy Central" manifesto, with an article in Ming Pao's opinion page in 2013 calling for a popular movement despite existing law to tear down the old constitutional establishment in a "revolution" of some sort. There were already comments back then that he might have been inspired by various "color revolutions" spearheaded by opposition parties, and especially young people, in a number of countries. Not surprisingly "Occupy" was also referred to as the "umbrella revolution".

Scores of "Occupy" participants have been prosecuted for various offenses since the illegal movement ended almost three years ago but the most prominent cases happened only recently and saw three former student activists sentenced to six, seven and eight months in prison for their leading roles in violent protests outside the government complex three years ago. The three young men are perfect examples of bad education by ill-motivated adults, undoubtedly including Tai. One of them was an HKU student in 2014. The Court of Appeal judges went so far as to mention in their written explanation of the decision an "unhealthy wind" that has put a lot of youths on a dangerous path toward self-destruction by trampling other people's rights while exercising their own. This is why HKU has every reason to fire Tai before he brings even more damage to Hong Kong society, including the university itself.

(HK Edition 09/07/2017 page8)