On Oct. 5, 14 students from Hong Kong St. Francis Xavier’s School were told to immediately leave the school and were suspended for three days because they were late to the assembly at which the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) anthem is played while its flag is raised. The school alleged that the students were “disrespecting the school” and “violating National Security Law.”
The school involved is St. Francis Xavier School, a traditional Catholic boys’ school in Tsuen Wan, a town on the western edge of Hong Kong.
Mrs. Chan, whose son attends the school, told The Epoch Times that in the early morning of Oct. 5, some students were still having breakfast in the dining area, although students are strictly required to attend the daily assembly at 8:05 a.m. When the CCP anthem began, 14 students from Form 2 and Form 6, hadn’t gone to the auditorium.
Vice-principal Law went to the dining area, reprimanded the students, and ordered them to stay where they were and wait for the director of student affairs. Law and the student affairs director told the students they would hand them to the police. In the end, Principal Ho Chi-wang fined the students and suspended them from attending classes.
Mrs. Chan criticized the school for being too harsh. Most of the students involved were Form 6 students who will take the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination in 2023. She said the punishment was excessive and will put a huge psychological pressure on the students.
She worried that the school has now set a precedent and other schools will inevitably follow suit. Mrs. Chan said that after the incident, her son was afraid to go to school and did not want to do his homework. “My son and other students didn’t know what was going on at the time.”
One of the students involved in the incident told the media that he did not know there was a flag-raising ceremony until the flag-raiser entered the auditorium when the incident occurred, so he failed to stand up in time. Eventually, the principal interpreted the incident as not standing for the CCP anthem when the flag was raised, so the student was suspended and given a warning.
The school issued a clarification to parents online on Oct. 10, stating that the school has an assembly at 8 a.m. every day, and last Wednesday was the weekly flag-raising ceremony required by the Education Bureau. Some students were reluctant to return to the classroom or assemble on the playground after the morning assembly, so the school deemed that they violated school rules and decided to suspend them from classes.
Jail for 3 Years or Fine of $6,370
After implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law, freedoms of speech and expression were severely restricted. The CCP National Anthem Ordinance is a Hong Kong legislation subsequently published in July 2019 with the intention to criminalize “insults to the national anthem of China.” Under the law, a person who publicly and intentionally insults the anthem faces up to three years in jail or a maximum fine of HK$50,000 (about $6,368).On July 30, 2021, Hong Kong police arrested a 40-year-old man for booing the national anthem in a shopping mall that was broadcasting live the city’s first Olympic gold medal win in 25 years.
