The Standing Committee on Pressure Groups (SCOPG) was a secret committee set up in 1978 by the Hong Kong government to monitor the activities of pressure groups. The existence of this committee was first revealed in the New Statesman 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.
Read more about Standing Committee On Pressure Groups: Government Response, Later Revelations, Destruction of The Files
Famous quotes containing the words standing, committee, pressure and/or groups:
“She tried to sit on my lap while I was standing up.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“In inner-party politics, these methods lead, as we shall yet see, to this: the party organization substitutes itself for the party, the central committee substitutes itself for the organization, and, finally, a “dictator” substitutes himself for the central committee.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“The mother whose self-image is dependent on her children places on those children the responsibility for her own identity, and her involvement in the details of their lives can put great pressure on the children. A child suffers when everything he or she does is extremely important to a parent; this kind of over-involvement can turn even a small problem into a crisis.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“Belonging to a group can provide the child with a variety of resources that an individual friendship often cannot—a sense of collective participation, experience with organizational roles, and group support in the enterprise of growing up. Groups also pose for the child some of the most acute problems of social life—of inclusion and exclusion, conformity and independence.”
—Zick Rubin (20th century)