The Standing Committee on Pressure Groups (SCOPG) was a secret committee set up in 1978 by the

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

government to monitor the activities of

pressure group Advocacy groups, also known as interest groups, special interest groups, lobbying groups or pressure groups use various forms of advocacy in order to influence public opinion and ultimately policy. They play an important role in the develop ...

s. The existence of this committee was first revealed in the ''

New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...

'' on 12 December 1980. The article, written by Duncan Campbell, asserted that any political group had been subjected to surveillance. Furthermore, the SCOPG had actively sought to undermine, co-opt or coerce eleven groups that were specifically targeted in a confidential report obtained by the paper. What was even more surprising, the SCOPG had been set up to infiltrate pressure groups. The greatest emphasis was placed on a group called the Hong Kong Observers. Due to political pressure the committee ceased to exist in 1983.

Government response

The government officially recognized the existence of the committee but denied that it had any sinister motives. The claim was that it was set up to monitor pressure groups in order to better understand the groups' opinions. Furthermore, the government attacked the ''New Statesman'' for inaccuracies and lies (such as the allegation that the committee had sought to infiltrate pressure groups). The report had also put pressure on the government to reveal details about the

Special Branch Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security and Intelligence (information gathering), intelligence in Policing in the United Kingdom, British, Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth, ...

, which Campbell had put at 20% of the police force. The government rejected these figures and also asserted that the staff of 1,200 was used to accommodate state visits, avert terrorist acts, and subversive activities by

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

agents.

Later revelations

The ''

Hong Kong Standard ''The Standard'' is an English-language free newspaper in Hong Kong with a daily circulation of 200,450 in 2012. It was formerly called the ''Hongkong Standard'' and changed to ''HKiMail'' during the Internet boom but partially reverted to '' ...

'' revealed on 16 January 1981 that there were personal attacks as well as plans for possible infiltration of groups such as school and college associations. The paper reported that the goal of the SCOPG was to protect Hong Kong's image abroad. On 28 January 1981 the same paper reported on a 'Red List' after it had obtained 11 further confidential reports. The three groups that were supposedly threatened by

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

infiltration were the Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union (HKPTU)(headed by

Szeto Wah Szeto Wah (; 28 February 1931 – 2 January 2011) was a prominent Hong Kong democracy activist and politician. He was the founding chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the Hong Kong Profes ...

), the

Hong Kong Federation of Students The Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS, or 學聯) is a student organisation founded in May 1958 by the student unions of four higher education institutions in Hong Kong. The inaugural committee had seven members representing the four sc ...

(HKFS) and the

Government School Non-Graduate Teachers Union A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

(GSNTU). In response to this revelation, the government said that this report did not reflect the official opinion of the government.

Destruction of the files

In 1995, the government admitted that almost all the files related to the SCOPG report had been destroyed during the 1980s "for record management purposes."Hong Kong Legislative Council
Official Record of Proceedings
10 May 1995 The secretary for security, Peter Lai, also stated: "Government policy provides for the review of classified material. Government files are destroyed for record management purposes when they no longer serve a useful purpose." The government refused to answer further questions about the committee and declared that no new similar committee had been set up.

References

External links

* * {{cite web, url=http://sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/newspaper/index.jsp , location=Hong Kong, title=Hong Kong Newspaper Clippings Online , website=sunzil.lib.hku.hk (login required) British Hong Kong Politics of Hong Kong 1978 establishments in Hong Kong Hong Kong, Pressure Groups