(dpa/NAN) Many of the textbooks used in Hong Kong schools are “brainwashing” their students to believe in a certain interpretation of historical events, a pro-democracy party said on Friday.
References to the British colonial era as an “occupation” and negative portrayals of a free press were just some of the “subjective judgments” in the textbooks, Demsosito party member Isaac Chen said.
He said the textbooks, whose publisher Hong Kong Educational Publishing Company is indirectly owned by Beijing’s Hong Kong Liaison Office, present a negative view of the Umbrella Movement, a massive pro-democracy protest in 2014.
Many of the movement’s leaders went on to found Demsosito.
Critics of the Hong Kong government say the historical narrative taught to school children is becoming increasingly patriotic and more in line with that of Beijing.
References to the “handover” of Hong Kong, a former British colony, to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, have also become controversial in recent years.
In May, the South China Morning Post reported that any mention of it had been removed from government websites.
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China, with special rights and priviledges until 2047.
