A teacher behind an anti-police Facebook post has apologized, saying he was unaware that there was a hidden message in it that cursed an officer who was diagnosed with Covid-19.

In a statement placed in a Chinese newspaper yesterday, Billy Ho Pak-yan of Confucius Hall Secondary School in Causeway Bay said he did not write the passage, but simply shared it.

"The post is not come from me, but was a message forwarded from other websites," Ho said. "I did not notice the hidden meaning of the post, and deleted it immediately after being told of the issue."

He said he was sorry for causing any harm or distress with the post, including to the sponsoring body and the school's incorporated management committee.

Ho added he was "extremely disappointed" at people who posted false statements, made personal attacks and publicized his and his family's personal information.

The school has "reached a unanimous decision to terminate Ho's position as acting vice-principal," but will reinstate him to his teaching position at the school, according to a post on the school's Facebook page on Wednesday.

The school said an investigation task force concluded that "Ho lacked sensitivity on the content of the post, and did not have the intention" to create a n incident.

It said, however, that Ho's act has brought a "severe negative impact" to the school.

The committee stressed that it has upheld the principle of keeping "politics out of the school" environment and that it disagreed with any acts that preached violence.

Ho posted an 11-line Cantonese poem that said it was "not good to be black-hearted," while the police were just doing their job. The post also said the public should show humanity and fight the epidemic together, not celebrate a case of police infection.

But the first word in each line carried the message that "all bad cops should see their whole family die, not one should be spared." The last part of the post also included hashtags, with one saying "stay calm everyone and read carefully to understand."

The acrostic poem went viral on social media when it was posted days after a riot police officer was confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus last Thursday.

The school's principal, Yeung Wing-hon, said on Monday that the education bureau has contacted the school, and the bureau would let the school complete its investigation first.

Meanwhile, more than two dozen people protested outside the office of the Professional Teachers' Union in Mong Kok yesterday.

The group, who claimed to be "concerned citizens from Tsuen Wan," criticized the PTU for failing to maintain the moral standards of the education sector and to uphold the professionalism of the teachers.

"The PTU has become a protective cover for teachers to express profanity that incites hatred," the protesters said.

Anti-cop post teacher pleads ignorance