香港長官、かつて学んだ英ケンブリッジの名誉フェローの称号返上

【香港ＡＦＰ＝時事】香港政府トップの林鄭月娥（キャリー・ラム）行政長官は15日、かつて在籍したケンブリッジ大学のカレッジから授与された名誉フェローの称号を「返上した」ことを明らかにした。（写真は林鄭月娥氏）
　同大学ウルフソンカレッジで学んだ林鄭氏は、同校が香港における学問の自由に対する調査を開始したことを受け、同校との関係を断つと発表。
　林鄭氏は、「事実ではなくうわさを根拠に人を中傷するカレッジに深く失望した」「そのため、同カレッジとのいかなる関係をも維持すべきだと、とても確信できない」とのコメントを、緑あふれるキャンパスで撮影した自身の写真と共にフェイスブックに投稿。
　ウルフソンカレッジによると同校は最近、人権や表現の自由を守ることに関する、林鄭氏の姿勢を懸念していたという。
　同校の理事会は来月、林鄭氏の名誉フェローとしての称号について審議することになっていたが、同氏が返上した今、その必要はなくなった。
　香港にはアジアでトップクラスの大学が複数あるものの、中国政府が大学を御し、愛国教育を推進する中、政治的自由の衰退が多くの大学を揺るがしている。
　ウルフソンカレッジは昨年以降、林鄭氏の称号剥奪への圧力にさらされていた。
　林鄭氏はフェイスブックで、抗議デモに関する行政としての立場について説明するため、昨年および先週、ウルフソンカレッジに文書を送ったことを明かし、自由の抑圧を否定した上で、「こうした根拠のない批判を一笑に付したい」とのコメントを記した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/08/17-13:13）

Hong Kong's leader says she has returned her honorary fellowship to a Cambridge college after a row over whether the finance hub's academic freedoms are being suppressed as authorities crack down on pro-democracy opponents.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam said she was cutting ties with Cambridge's Wolfson College after it began looking into the state of academic liberty in Hong Kong.
Lam said she was deeply disappointed by the college smearing a person on the basis of hearsay instead of facts.
Therefore I can hardly convince myself to maintain any relation with Wolfson College, she wrote on Facebook late Saturday alongside a photo of herself in leafy Cambridge.
Wolfson College said it had recently raised concerns with Hong Kong's leader about her commitment to the protection of human rights and the freedom of expression.
Its governing body had been due to consider Lam's fellowship next month but would no longer do so now that Lam had returned the honour.
Lam, a pro-Beijing appointee, was one of a number of Chinese and Hong Kong officials sanctioned by the United States after Beijing imposed a sweeping security law on the semi-autonomous city in late June.
The law ramps up the Chinese Communist Party's control over the finance hub and in the weeks that followed some two dozen pro-democracy supporters have been arrested under the new powers, including the owner of a Beijing-critical newspaper.
Others have been disqualified from standing in local elections while libraries and schools have begun pulling any books deemed to breach the law.
Three well-known academics also lost their jobs because they had been previously jailed for leading pro-democracy protests.
Hong Kong has some of Asia's best universities, but declining political freedoms have rattled many as China vows to rein in campuses and instil more patriotic education.
Wolfson College had been under pressure to rescind Lam's honorary fellowship since last year.
In November three members of Britain's House of Lords called for the move over Lam's response to months of huge and often violent pro-democracy protests.
Beijing introduced its security law to end that movement and restore stability, describing it as a sword hanging over the heads of its critics in the city.
In her Facebook statement, Lam -- who previously studied at Cambridge University -- said she had written to Wolfson College last year and last week to explain her administration's stance on the protests.
She denied suppressing freedoms.
Regarding such groundless accusations, I wanted to dismiss them with a laugh, she wrote.