Carrie Lam File Photo:VCG

 

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said she was disappointed at unwarranted accusations and therefore has given up her honorary fellowship at the Wolfson College of Cambridge University as the college was under pressure to revoke her fellowship following the enactment of the national security law.

Lam wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday that she voluntarily gave up the fellowship on Friday. She was bestowed the fellowship in 2017 after she was elected the chief executive of Hong Kong. 

According to Lam, the current college president has been under pressure from some British politicians, media and organizations since the unrest occurred in Hong Kong last year. The president has written to Lam to inform her that some people had asked the college to revoke the fellowship.

Lam said she had repeatedly written to the college to clarify the situation.

In her last letter to the college on Friday, Lam wrote that universities in Hong Kong enjoy academic freedom and that the UK has similar legal clauses to protect its own national security. 

Lam wrote in her Facebook post that she was very disappointed at Wolfson College's attitude and the accusations against her are baseless and unwarranted. 

"I cannot persuade myself to continue having any connection with Wolfson College and therefore decided to give back the honorary fellowship," Lam wrote. 

Lam was not the first Hong Kong politician to give up honorary titles due to political slander in the West. 

In 2019, Hong Kong lawmaker Junius Ho was stripped of an honorary law degree by Anglia Ruskin University, his alma mater in Britain.