Hong Kong saved from Spanish-lessons threat

Without informal, non-government (often missionary-run) schools on Kowloon rooftops, half of Hong Kong’s 1950s and 60s generation would have been illiterate. But today, a bookseller hosting a Spanish interest class in his store can be prosecuted…

Before handing down the [HK$32,000] fine, Magistrate Arthur Lam said he had found [store-owner Pong Yat-ming and his company] guilty of five charges alleging that [they] ran an unregistered school and allowed a person without a permit to teach.

…Magistrate Lam said the case centred around whether Book Punch met the definition of a school under the city’s Education Ordinance, which defines a school as an institution that provides formal education or “any other educational course by any means” for 20 people or more in a day, or eight people or more at one time.

Lam rejected the defence’s argument that an educational course must involve an assessment mechanism, such as exams, or lead to an academic qualification.

“A course is concerned about progress or… a series of lessons about a particular topic,” Lam said in Cantonese.

“In this case, it was obvious that Montane was teaching and the [students] were learning,” he said.

He also rejected the defence’s submission that Pong was led to believe that an interest class did not require registration because of a 2017 remark by ex-education chief Kevin Yeung … that interest classes such as those teaching dance and acting would not require school registration “because they are interests.”

Lam said Yeung’s remark came with a precondition that an interest class does not provide educational activities.

“The Spanish class in question offers information on basic grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, as well as common phrases for travelling,” the magistrate said. “These are clearly educational content.”

The fact that a CCP-run newspaper had mentioned the bookstore in connection with ‘soft resistance’ didn’t enter into the case at all – which seems odd. 

The magistrate hints at a distinction between ‘educational’ and ‘interest’ content. The law (here) seems to concern itself with actual schools, rather than informal study groups. But if the magistrate is right, it sounds as if ‘educating’ a group of eight people or more about anything is illegal unless you register with the authorities.

So who else should be fined for having an ‘unregistered school’? 

The fancy butcher chain Feather and Bone’s sausage-making classes? BiteUnite’s pasta-making ones? Corvino’s wine-appreciation courses? Dozens of pottery workshops? Flower-arranging? The YWCA’s swimming training for domestic helpers and refugees? Christian Sunday schools and Bible studies, and Buddhists’, Muslims’ and Jews’ equivalents? Golftec’s lessons on hitting little balls with sticks? What if nine people are trapped in an elevator because of a voltage dip and, to pass the time, one teaches the others some (say) Italian?  And let’s not forget ‘Learn English with Regina’…

Where do we report these outrages? It’s unregistered-school mayhem out there.

From RTHK…

Deputy Chief Secretary Warner Cheuk said on Saturday that the public should remain highly vigilant against “soft resistance” and acts that “skirt the line”.

His remarks came ahead of the National Security Education Day on April 15.

In an interview with Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po newspapers, Cheuk said safeguarding national security is a long-term battle and that it is crucial to bear in mind the lessons learned from 2019 ‘colour revolution’ in Hong Kong.

“Apart from the more conventional areas of national security concerns like political, military and homeland security, many non-conventional types of national security are also very important – such as financial, economic, social, cultural, technological, resource and data security, etc. Altogether there are 20 fields of national security,” he said.

“This is what we call a holistic national security concept.”

Sounds as if those people holding classes in sausages, pasta and wine need to watch out.

From Maya Wong of HRW, an obituary of Koo Sze-yiu…

…he continued protesting even after Beijing imposed the draconian National Security Law in 2020, under which dissent is punishable by life imprisonment. He also continued after being diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2020. As growing repression intimidated most Hong Kongers into silence and forced many into exile, Koo stayed. He protested the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. His last arrest came in December 2023 for “attempted sedition” after he planned to protest Hong Kong’s sham elections.