China's 'purification' of classrooms: A new law erases history, silences teachers and rewrites books
FROM THE ARTICLE:
HONG KONG —
The high school visual arts teacher couldn’t go to the front lines of protest, but he took inspiration from the pro-democracy marches and unleashed his own brand of subversion: cartoons.
He drew a policeman sweeping a bloodied protester under a rug fashioned after the Chinese flag. Another sketch captioned “Lunchtime” depicted popular snacks — an egg custard tart and deep-fried French toast — next to a canister of tear gas. He captured the unrelenting despair that seized Hong Kongers after the demonstrations each night with an image of a man lying in bed crying himself to sleep.
Everywhere Wong looked, he saw China constricting the freedoms that had made Hong Kong an unabashed city of towering glass, raucous politics and quicksilver commerce.
He drew in harrowing detail what he was losing, sharing his work on social media under the pen name @vawongsir.
He thought his identity was safe.
But then came the anonymous complaint to the Education Bureau that he was “publishing inappropriate illustrations online.”
Wong would end up losing his job.
“I felt powerless,” he said.
With China’s tightening control over Hong Kong, including passage of a new national security law, the territory’s pro-democracy activists, politicians, journalists and others are facing a Communist Party determined to crush dissent.
Perhaps the greatest threat from this new purge — one that will affect generations to come — is the increasing pressure on schools and teachers over what to put in the minds of students.
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“They are turning education into a tool for controlling thought in Hong Kong,” said Ip Kin-yuen, a pro-democracy lawmaker
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The national security legislation — which threatens violators with life in prison for acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces — targets anyone who opposes the Chinese Communist Party’s will.
The law has been used to arrest government critics
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