A Christian anti-gay group has won a Hong Kong government contract to advise teachers on how to teach human rights in the classroom, sparking anger yesterday from gay-rights organizations.
The Society for Truth and Light outbid human-rights watchdogs and academics to run the training program under the government's civic-education scheme, which is aimed at boosting nationalism.
The group has come under fire in the past for condemning homosexuality and opposing gay rights.
Activist Roddy Shaw of Civil Rights for Sexual Diversities deplored the move as "inappropriate" and said the society was ill-equipped to teach human rights.
"We've seen this organization attack not only the gay and lesbian community but also other sectors it feels are immoral," Shaw said.
"They don't have a position to be teaching human rights to high-school teachers," he said.
Homosexuality was only decriminalized in Hong Kong in 1991.
The Society for Truth and Light was unavailable for comment.
However, in what the South China Morning Post reported were extracts from the teaching course outline, the society says one of the themes it will discuss is "excessive use of human rights."
"Following the trend of liberalization, people only emphasize individual rights and ignore one's responsibility and obligation to society," the paper quotes the course outline as saying. "Extreme liberalists always uphold human rights to strike against traditional social values."
"The society hopes, by organizing this program, teachers will understand the true meaning of human rights," it adds.
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
Cozy knits, sparkly bobbles and Santa hats were all the canine rage on Sunday, as hundreds of sausage dogs and their owners converged on central London for an annual parade and get-together. The dachshunds’ gathering in London’s Hyde Park came after a previous “Sausage Walk” planned for Halloween had to be postponed, because it had become so popular organizers needed to apply for an events licence. “It was going to be too much fun so they canceled it,” laughed Nicky Bailey, the owner of three sausage dogs: Una and her two 19-week-old puppies Ember and Finnegan, wearing matching red coats and silver
RSS