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Human Rights Issues -- January 2002
Lecturers facing axe raise racism issue in appeals (January 12, 2002) (Article 4)
The prohibition of protestors from entering Legislative Council (January 16, 2002) (Article 19)
Lecturers facing axe raise racism issue in appeals (January 12, 2002) (Article 4)
Ten scholars of the City University of Hong Kong, including eight Chinese and two South Asians belonged to the school of law, were not allowed to renew the contract and attempted to appeal to the University's Approval Committee for Appointment of Academic Staff. The Committee upheld most of the decision of the staffing committee of the law school and decided to grant one-year extension for two lecturers.
One of the academics, whose contract had not been renewed, commented that the staffing committee had not provided sufficient reasons on explaining why the contract cannot be renewed and without one word to comment on the performance in teaching and research of study. It was speculated that the decision may be motivated by the racial discrimination by the newly Dean of Law Professor Mike McConville, who was the native English speakers and did not understand Chinese.
Those affected scholars claimed that it was a reasonable inference that the dismissals might be related to racial discrimination that they had added such point for the appeal. The appeals were still in progress.
The prohibition of protestors from entering Legislative Council (January 16, 2002) (Article 19)
The administrative management committee of the legislative council had proposed two proposals in order to prevent those troublemakers from disturbing the meeting. The committee had prepared two proposals. The first proposal was that any person who had been removed twice from the public area within the same year of legislation was prohibited to re-enter the public area during the meeting. The second proposal was that any person who had been removed twice from the public area within the period of affiliation (i.e. four years) was prohibited to re-enter again.
Both the legislator of the Liberal party and the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong agreed with both proposals as it could prevent the meeting from being distracted by those troublemakers.
On the contrary, non-affiliated legislator Margaret NG Ngoi-yee claimed that the existing regulations had already enough. The proposals were too arbitrary as they would hinder citizens' right to attend the meeting and express their views.