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Human Rights Issues -- June 2001
Chief Executive concluded that Falun Gong was a cult (June 15, 2001) (Article 18)
High Court ruled that the Secondary School Places Allocation System discriminated against girls
Chief Executive concluded that Falun Gong was a cult (June 15, 2001) (Article 18)
In the question-and-answer session of the Legislative Council, the Chief Executive Mr. TUNG Chee-hwa, said that Falun Gong was doubtlessly to be a cult. In order to maintain social stability for Hong Kong and Mainland China, the SAR Government has an obligation to keep a close eye on any movement or action taken by Falun Gong followers. However, the Chief Executive said that there was no need to legislate against cult at present.
The comment of the Chief Executive resulted in different feedbacks. The spokesperson of Falun Gong (Hong Kong), Ms. Cheung Yee-han, criticized that Tung's comment was a defamation to Falun Gong. Moreover, the chairman of Hong Kong Barrister Assocation, Mr. Leung Ka-kit, said that as there was no anti-cult law and objective indicators to define cult, it was unfair and lack of legal grounds for the Chief Executive to label certain organization as a cult.
Oppositely, Mr. Ma Lik, the Hong Kong representative of the National People's Congress, stated that Tung's comment showed an appropriate and repressive political stand. In February 2001, with reference to the news from Mainland China reported that the Falun Gong follower harmed at Tiananmen Square, the Chief Executive had concluded that Falun Gong more or less had the characteristics of an evil cult. The spokesman of the Chief Executive Office stressed that the standpoint of the Chief Executive was consistent with his view expressed in February 2001.
Democrat legislator Mr. Albert Ho Chun-yan criticised that the comment of the Chief Executive expressed an idea of the Chief Executive and the individualistic authority overrode the jurisdiction of the law court. He estimated that Tung's comment was made under the instruction of the central government.
After one day of the comment, the Secretary for Justice, Ms Elsie Leung Oi-sie,
defended for the Chief Executive. She argued that the Chief Executive had obligation
to enforce his duty by warning the public on a cult issue because he was the
leader of the Special Administrative Region. Moreover, she said that no prosecution
had been made to Falun Gong follower and it was unreasonable for the government
to warn the public after an actual harm occurred. Hence, it was nonsense for
suing the Chief Executive by defamation.
High Court ruled that the Secondary School Places Allocation System discriminated against girls
(22 June 2001) (Article 4)
The High Court declared that the secondary school allocation system was unlawful and discriminatory against girls. The Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) sued this case to the court after the Education Department neglected the recommendations by EOC and denied changing its system.
The system was established since 1978 for allocating secondary school placements for grade 6 students. It separated queues in banding for boys and girls and fixed quotas in co-educational schools on gender basis and remained it as criteria for allocating students to secondary schools. After the establishment of the EOC in 1996, it received complaints from the parents who complained their children were allocated to a lower band of schools than their classmates of the opposite sex with lower academic achievements. This phenomenon also proved by the investigation report conducted by the Equal Opportunity Commission in 1999. It was found that girls needed to have higher academic achievements than boys for having school placements at better banding schools. It resulted that more boys studied at better banding schools.
The reasons for separating queues for boys and girls by the Education Department was that girls were more mature and had better concentration on studies than boys during the primary school study so that they usually got higher scores at schools. In order to balance the gender ration at secondary schools, a fixed quotas system for co-education system should be established.
However, the EOC had another argument that the academic achievements achieved by boys and girls will be changed by time and affected by the society. Furthermore, the academic aptitude test result showed that 70% boys got higher scores than girls. The Department needed to use the result of academic aptitude test as a reference, not just paying attention to the school examinations result.
The secondary school placement allocation result will be announced in August and the Education Department admitted there was difficult to re-allocate the placement for all students within these two months but it will change the system in the future. Parents and students can lodge complaints to the EOC and the Education Department when they think whose children were discriminated against after receiving the result in August. Details can be found under this address
http://www.ed.gov.hk/ednewhp/student/places_allocation/sspa/English/spenglish.pdf