Education Bureau pressures tertiary institutions to stop scholars attending Academia Sinica’s Hong Kong seminar in Taiwan; Education Sting: a fatal blow
教育局向大專院校施壓阻學者赴台出席中研院香港研討會 《教育刺針》：局方一劍封喉
Pulse HK reported last week that a political commentary article in Eastweek had pressured Hong Kong scholars by “calling on” them to decisively refuse to attend an international conference on Hong Kong to be held by Taiwan’s Academia Sinica in early December. The education news platform Education Sting received a tip alleging that the Hong Kong Education Bureau had also actively intervened by contacting tertiary institutions to prevent local scholars from travelling to the conference. Hans Yeung Wing-yu, the platform’s founder, said the Education Bureau’s “open and explicit” intervention this time amounted to “a fatal blow”, signalling that similar incidents must not happen again and that academic freedom would decline further. Academia Sinica’s Hong Kong Studies group will hold the third “Hong Kong Studies Going Global” international conference on 4 and 5 December. In a post yesterday (28th), Education Sting said it had received exclusive and reliable information that the Education Bureau had contacted local tertiary institutions and directly pressured Hong Kong-based scholars who had already registered to attend, in an effort to stop them from going to the conference. Hong Kong’s eight publicly funded universities have traditionally been regulated and funded by the University Grants Committee (UGC). However, Education Sting quoted a source as saying that the Education Bureau had taken the initiative this time and, after obtaining information including the participating scholars and their paper topics, directly pressured the institutions. According to Pulse HK, at least five scholars from Hong Kong are scheduled to present papers, including Ma Ngok of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
《追光者》上周曾報道，《東周刊》有政論文章向香港學者施壓「呼籲」要果斷拒絕出席台灣中央研究院（中研院）將於12月初舉辦的香港相關國際研討會。教育新聞平台《教育刺針》收到爆料，指香港教育局亦積極干預，聯繫大專院校阻止本港學者前往。《教育刺針》創辦人楊穎宇認為，這次教育局「開宗明義」出手算是「一劍封喉」，代表不可再發生類似事件，亦意味學術自由會進一步下降。 台灣中研院「香港研究」小組，將於12月4至5日舉行第三屆「香港研究走向全球」國際研討會，《教育刺針》昨（28日）發文稱獲得獨家可靠消息，教育局聯繫本地大專院校，直接向已報名參加會議的在港學者施壓，阻止他們出席會議。 香港八間資助大學一向都是由大學教育資助委員會（UGC）規管及撥款。不過，《教育刺針》引述報料人透露，教育局今次主動出手，在掌握有關出席學者及論文題目等資訊後，直接向院校施壓。據《追光者》了解，來自香港並將會發表論文的學者至少有5位，包括中文大學的馬嶽。