Academic freedom declines under Hong Kong's national security regime, report finds

Taipei, Taiwan — 

A study released connected Wednesday finds that Hong Kong's nationalist information law, enacted successful July 2020, has eroded world state successful the erstwhile British colony.

The report, co-authored by Human Rights Watch, and the Washington-based advocacy enactment Hong Kong Democracy Council, said assemblage authorities person imposed greater power and limitations connected pupil activities and that students and module members are progressively exercising self-censorship to debar getting into trouble.

"Students, academics, and administrators, particularly those from Hong Kong studying modern socio-political issues, consciousness arsenic if they are surviving nether a microscope," the study says.

Some analysts accidental the opaque explanation of what constitutes a usurpation of the information instrumentality has created a chilling effect among students and module members astatine Hong Kong universities.

"When the reddish enactment isn't clear, determination volition beryllium a pervasive consciousness of fear, and students and module members volition effort to marque adjustments to guarantee they don't get into trouble," Maya Wang, the subordinate China manager astatine Human Rights Watch, told VOA by phone.

The study said Hong Kong's 8 nationalist universities person been managed by radical who clasp views favored by Beijing pursuing the imposition of the instrumentality successful 2020. Since then, assemblage officials person accrued crackdowns connected pupil unions and banned symbols oregon events viewed arsenic promoting pro-democracy values.

"University officials person punished students for holding peaceful protests and gatherings, and person broadly censored pupil publications, communications, and events," the study reads.

Wang astatine Human Rights Watch said since galore assemblage students and academics were progressive successful 2019 protests implicit an extradition bill, 1 of the Chinese government's priorities pursuing the implementation of the instrumentality is to "impose ideological control" implicit universities.

"The diminution of world state successful Hong Kong's universities is portion of Beijing's effort to enforce ideological power implicit the full city," she told VOA.

Exercising self-censorship

Most of the 33 students and academics interviewed for the study said self-censorship is simply a communal signifier astatine universities successful Hong Kong, particularly connected socio-political topics related to China and Hong Kong.

"They bash this erstwhile expressing themselves successful classrooms, erstwhile penning and researching world articles, and erstwhile inviting speakers for world conferences," the study says, adding that academics teaching Hong Kong and China existent affairs consciousness "especially vulnerable."

In immoderate cases, assemblage officials person asked academics successful the societal subject tract to halt offering courses connected topics that Beijing considers sensitive. Others look censorship imposed by assemblage administrators oregon world publishers.

Some academics said the prevalence of self-censorship astatine universities successful Hong Kong volition trim planetary knowing of the dynamics successful China.

"Hong Kong was ever an important abstraction that gives the planetary assemblage immoderate penetration into what's happening successful Hong Kong and the broader China, but that abstraction is present rapidly disappearing," Lokman Tsui, a probe chap astatine the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab and a erstwhile journalism prof astatine the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told VOA by phone.

The law's antagonistic interaction connected world state successful Hong Kong seems to disagree betwixt academics successful antithetic fields. "Some said [the NSL] affected everything they do; others said it has precise small impact," the study says.

Since assemblage absorption is stacked with supporters of the Chinese government's position, the study says assemblage administrators person worked with Chinese and Hong Kong authorities to harass, intimidate oregon adjacent region academics voicing antithetic opinions.

"The authorities does that by defaming and intimidating those academics perceived to clasp wide oregon pro-democracy views successful the state-owned media and denying oregon not issuing visas to overseas academics expressing specified opinions," the study says, adding that universities would past fire, fto spell oregon contradict tenure to these academics.

Human Rights Watch and Hong Kong Democracy Council said the Chinese government's efforts to "cleanse" universities successful Hong Kong person led to a "harmonization" of sentiment successful academia successful Hong Kong. They besides assistance amplify Chinese and Hong Kong authorities' assertion that pro-democracy voices are present "in the minority."

"The Chinese government's wide volition has been to 'cleanse' the universities [and] the effect is simply a sanitized mentation of higher acquisition compliant with the Party's views, which truthful acold continues to present a high-caliber education," the study says.