Police will endeavour to foster a stronger partnership with schools through school liaison officers and educate students via talks or other activities on the harm of terrorism to the community, Secretary for Security Tang Ping-keung said.

Mr Tang told legislators today that the Police will also advise students on ways to identify extreme ideologies and the precautionary measures they should take.

He pointed out that, similar to the trend of global terrorist activities, local radical organisations recruit members mostly via social media. There are also signs that some people are introducing terrorism into schools or recruiting students from schools to take part in terrorist activities.

Student concern groups, political bodies or even tutorial schools were seen in recent years to have wantonly instilled improper values among students and sent out false or biased messages.

They attempted to incite the students’ hatred against the country and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government and even advocated resorting to violence and illegal acts for political ends. 

Mr Tang explained that such groups promoted extreme ideologies and recruited students by various means such as producing biased teaching materials, setting up street booths and making use of the Internet.

The security chief cautioned that ideologies endangering national security are still infiltrating via the media, culture and arts and other soft resistance means to poison the minds of young people.

He stressed that the public should stay on guard that some people are trying to make heroic, glorify or downplay acts of violent attacks.

On preventing the infiltration of terrorism into schools, Mr Tang said Police have all along strived to strengthen their efforts in gathering counter-terrorism intelligence for early identification and deterrence of acts by violent radicals that endanger public safety.

Publicity and education are equally important for instilling correct values and law-abiding awareness among young people as early as possible, he added.