HONG KONG—Last month, several thousand Hong Kong university students, some under the watch of a CCTV camera, were the first to attend compulsory courses on the territory’s national security law. The content of the courses, some of which Reuters has seen exclusively, sets out the dangers of breaking the law, in one case demonstrating how a message in a chat group could be interpreted as a serious breach, punishable by up to life in prison. At Hong Kong Baptist University, at least one CCTV camera was present in the lecture hall, while an unidentified photographer took pictures, according to two students who attended. Critics said the courses represent an attack on academic freedom in Hong Kong’s Western-style university education system. “In principle, making requirements on particular classes is a very serious infringement of academic freedom,” said Katrin Kinzelbach, a political scientist at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, who has …