TNAG-0798-FCO40-1002-Dispute-over-closure-of-Precious-Blood-Golden-Jubilee-Second-1978 — Page 23

EDUCATION ACTION GROUP

教育行動 組

Ha Man-Ho, Anthony

16, Dumbarton Road, 3rd floor,

Kowloon City,

Hong Kong.

3rd, July, 1978.

Miss Janet E. Forkes B.A., M.P.,

House of Commons,

United Kingdom.

Dear Miss Fooksus

Thank you for the attention you have given to my first letter and to my telegrams. Since then, there have been further developmenta which I would like to inform you of now. I hope this may help you decide what position to take in the Erecious Blood Colden Jubilee School issue.

First, please allow me to remark that the influence of the Govern -ment on our press is very great indeed. The Education Departmant knew it could rally the support of the papers, Perhaps it was with this in mind that the Education Department released so much material highly critical of the teachers' motives. In sum, the Education Department label the claims of the teachers and students as "pretexts for anarchy". I would like to call your attention to three stories told by the Eluoat -ion Department, all of which had the effect of darkening the image of the sixteen teachers in the eyes of the public.

First of all, the Education Department held that the teachers falsely claimed to have been the first ones to report financial irre -gularities. The Education Department has repeatedly laid stress an what it describes as the correct chronology of events of the incident: that is it was the schools' managers who had disclosed their problems voluntarily to the Education Department on April 12 last year, and that the teachers only came forward 10 days later. The impression is being created that the teachers were attempting to clain credit for unearthing financial mismanagement. The South China Morning Post, a leading paper here, in an editorial titled " A firm 'No' to school militants " followed the same line of argument. (Docement #1)

Then came the important Independent Commission Against Corruption revelation on May 29th, which ́established the fact that the teachers had asked for its help as early as February 1st, 1977. (Document #2) There can be two possibilities to this contradiction. The first is the Education Department has failed to discover this fact in its "detailed investigation" of the incident. In that case, the Education Departmant is incompetent, and it should apologize for its erroneous and mis-leading report on the issue. The second possibility is that the Education Depart -ment has withheld vital information from the public. In that case, the oredibility of the Education Department is very much in question. It was only then that some of the leading papers (including the South China Morning Post) modified their views on the whole issue. (Please refer to the important documents # 3, 4, & 5). Since then, the South China Morn -ing Post has discarded the word "militant“ in describing the teachers,' but instead refer them as "dissident teachers". (Document 1 6)

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