Hong Kong citizens believe there is no excuse for the violence meted out by the Hong Kong police during the Umbrella protests, no matter how pressured and overworked the police may be.
Police have received more than 1,700 complaints relating to the Umbrella protests since the movement started on Sept. 28. Most of these complaints are about assaults, neglect of duty, and misconduct by the police force.
Meanwhile, a Dec. 9 Hong Kong University survey found that police popularity was only 29 percent, an all-time low.
The police are aware of the criticisms and the poor public perception.
On Tuesday, Nov. 9, assistant police commissioner Cheung Tak-keung says that police have “demonstrated utmost tolerance and restraint” in handling the “illegal” Umbrella Movement street occupations because they don’t want to see the public, “particularly students,” get injured in massive scuffles.
Cheung also says that police will only use a “minimum level of force” against “radicals and troublemakers” in the protester crowd.
But not everyone agrees that the police showed “tolerance and restraint” or used “minimal force” in past confrontations with pro-democracy demonstrators.
On Dec. 7, about 2,000 people from parents, social workers, and women’s groups carried out a “Parents Against Police Violence” march to police headquarters in Wan Chai.
Waving photos of police lashing out at students and banners with slogans like “Do not let our children live in fear of intimidation” and “Dad and Mum are standing out now,” the marchers condemned the police for causing unnecessary and excessive violence at Lung Wo Road and in Mong Kok over the last two weeks.
The “Umbrella Parents” called on the Hong Kong government to accept responsibility for police brutality, establish an independent committee to investigate police conduct and listen to Hong Kong citizens’ appeal for democracy.
Earlier, the Hong Kong Journalists Association condemned the police for violating the “media’s right to report” after two press members were assaulted and arrested by the police while covering the Mong Kok clearing.
This article documents recent police action against the press and protesters that have outraged Hongkongers, and also seeks to provide some perspective on the Hong Kong police.
Press
“I have never, or will ever, use violence when chasing a story,” said Li Siew Lung, a broadcast engineer with Hong Kong’s Now TV, after his release from police custody.
While covering the Mong Kok clearance on Nov. 26, Li was pushed down, pinned to the ground, and kicked by police officers who claimed that he assaulted one of their own with a ladder. Li identified himself as a journalist to the police officer and said he was rushing to an interview, but was beaten, handcuffed and detained for 27 hours.
After his release, Li told reporters that he did not hit anyone with his ladder while doing his job.
In a statement condemning the police violence, the Hong Kong Journalists Association noted that “anyone with some basic knowledge of TV filming will know that a ladder is used only to get better shot of the scene.” HKJA also claims that more than 25 journalists have been injured by the police while covering the Hong Kong protests.
Now TV, Li’s employer, called the assault a “a serious violation of press freedom.”
Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor Director Law Yuk Kai told Radio Free Asia that he felt that police overreacted.
“I don’t think there is very much evidence to support [the police claim that he had attacked them],” Law said. “People shouldn’t get arrested so lightly for so-called attacks on officers.”
“It’s pretty arbitrary.”
Police would arrest another Hong Kong reporter in Mong Kok the very next day.
Apple Daily reporter Wong Chun-lung was holding a video camera at about head level when a police officer in front of him turned around and hit his head on Wong’s camera. Like Li, Wong was pushed to the ground and handcuffed.
According to the South China Morning Post, Wong was arrested for “repeatedly hitting an officer’s face” with his video camera and for resisting arrest.
HKJA condemned the arrest “in the strongest terms” in another statement, and said that the police action against the press serves as an “intimidation against the media from monitoring the police action.”
Global human rights group Amnesty International also criticized the Hong Kong police’s use of “unjustifiable force against protesters, bystanders and media,” and raised the issue of police covering up their identification numbers.
“Police must not only act within the law, they must also be clearly seen to do so. The apparent removal of identity numbers, and the obstruction of journalists from reporting, raises serious questions as to whether the police want to avoid scrutiny,” said Mabel Au, Director of Amnesty International Hong Kong.
Hong Kong police have not responded to the condemnations, but have cautioned the press ahead of this Thursday’s Admiralty clearing.
Assistant police commissioner Cheung reminded the press to be “vigilant of personal safety” and not to stand in between the police and “radical” protesters.
Protesters
On the Hong Kong police’s Youtube page, there is a video on the “illegal occupation” of Mong Kok.
After shots of police removing barricades, the video cuts to scenes of masked protesters and other “troublemakers” carrying out acts like “loitering in the streets” and “inciting others to provoke police officers.” There is even a clip from taken from the Internet showing an outbreak of fisticuffs.
Since the “troublemakers” refused to leave Mong Kok, it left the police “no choice,” and they resorted to batons, pepper spray, and pepper “based-solutions” to disperse the crowd.
In numerous official statements and unofficial announcements at protest sites, the police note that the student protesters’ umbrellas and assorted makeshift protective gear like paper shields are “dangerous weapons,” hence forcing them to retaliate with riot equipment.
Yet there are ample videos and photographs on the Internet showing that Umbrella Movement protesters by and large practice what they preach — nonviolent demonstrations. The mainly student protesters are mostly on the defensive, holding their ground with opened umbrellas and makeshift shields.
When protesters do approach police lines, it is often with their arms raised above their heads to show they mean no harm.
Police are the ones doing most of the charging, usually after unfurling red warning banners with the words “Stop Charging or We Use Force.”
During police charges, protesters get brutally beaten, leaving bloodied heads, and bruised bodies and limbs.
Wong was nabbed on Nov. 26 in Mong Kok while questioning the bailiffs sent to ensure that the clearing of Nathan Road proceeded as per court orders. He was standing in front of the protesters when police officers rushed in to arrest him.
Wong’s arrest was at least covered by most Western media.
Police treatment of ordinary protesters who have been arrested have only been reported by Hong Kong publications.
About 40 protesters were arrested by the police following their occupation of Lung Wo Road in Admiralty. Protesters attempted but ultimately failed to surround government offices to prevent Hong Kong’s hugely unpopular leader Leung Chun-ying and civil servants from going to work.
According to the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, the protesters who were apprehended were brought to a covered carpark outside North Point police station. Although police took statements and fingerprints, the protesters were made to wait in the carpark for more than 20 hours before undergoing police booking procedure in the building.
Protesters also complained that police denied them blankets as they were chilled by the four high-powered fans in the carpark. Police allegedly claimed that they couldn’t turn off the fans because there was no switch.
While police may have engaged in excesses, they have been placed in a position in which some force seems unavoidable.
The Umbrella Movement is an act of civil disobedience, and its occupation of the streets is illegal. If the students refuse to abandon their occupation, the Hong Kong government requires the police to remove the students.
Police
Controlling and curbing the Umbrella Movement is not an easy assignment and protesters’ attitude towards the police hardly makes it any easier.
Because of the protests, police officers have to work long hours in the open under all kinds of weather.
Police officers have also suffered their fair share of abuse from both protesters and the public. Cries of “black police” — linking police with triads and other “black society” groups — and “police dogs” — alluding to their perceived role as the Hong Kong government’s lapdog — have often been directed at the cops.
The more unruly protesters have even been heard insulting police officer’s family members and seen showing them the middle finger.
Undoubtedly, there were individual police officers that lost control, but on the whole, the Hong Kong police force has been relatively tempered in driving demonstrators from protest sites.
The police are also not hated by all for their acts of violence. Pro-Beijing, anti-Umbrella Movement groups like Alliance for Peace and Democracy (APD) have constantly showed their support for the police.
“They have done a great job to protect Hong Kong and the Hong Kong public,” said APD spokesman Robert Chow at a rally to express gratitude outside police headquarters.
Some members of the public have also generously contributed towards a HK$10 million ($1.29 million) special fund that has been set up to help “officers whose livelihoods were affected by the Occupy Central protests,” SCMP reports.
Citing “informed sources,” SCMP claims that the public donation, which amounted to about half the fund, was pooled from “separate fundraisers.” Officers in the force contributed the other half.
However, SCMP wonders how the funds will be used because “relatively few officers have suffered directly as a result of the protests.”
Petitions
The Hong Kong people have tried to address their concerns with petitions.
A group of volunteer medical personal has urged Hong Kong’s Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC) to investigate police violence at the protests. The group has collected 5,000 signatures for a letter to the police, SCMP reports.
There’s a story behind the petition.
Dr Au Yiu-kai, a veteran international relief doctor and the volunteer head of medical services for the student protesters, described police action at Lung Wo Road as “completely outrageous.”
According to the SCMP, Dr Au was treating a protester’s head wound when a group of police charged at them. A police officer hit the injured protester in the head with his baton.
“I shouted that I was a doctor and they could see I was doing medical work. Another police officer yelled: ‘I don’t care if you’re saving lives, I will still arrest you.’ Luckily other protesters were around and dragged me away,” Au said.
Au claims that at least 16 medical personnel and 33 emergency volunteers were injured during the Lung Wo Road fracas.
The IPCC, however, has said that it will not send observers to the Umbrella protests because it wants to maintain “impartiality” as a statutory body.
Meanwhile, protesters have started an online petition to ask the United Nations Human Rights Council to launch an inquiry into the Hong Kong police and government’s abuse of human rights during the Umbrella demonstrations. At the time of writing, more than 100,000 people have signed the petition.
Whither Hong Kong?
Ultimately, Hongkongers are the biggest losers of police violence to curb the Umbrella Movement.
The Hong Kong police, one of the finest forces in the region, was well-respected as the people’s protectors against the triads and crooks of society.
Hongkongers’ perception shifted when police used tear gas on Sept. 28. Tens of thousands streamed into the streets, outraged at the breach in the special relationship between the people and the police.
The story of a kind-hearted cop who washed tear gas out of a protester’s eye, spread through an Epoch Times photo that went viral, somewhat redeemed the police in the eyes of Hongkongers.
However, the recent spate of brutal action has caused Hongkongers to fear, loathe, and consider striking back at their guardians of the law.
“People came out because they’re angry with the police,” Ben W. S. Lee, a 37-year-old teacher, told the New York Times during the Mong Kok clearing.
“I’ve lost all my trust in the police because they’ve used excessive force on Hong Kong people in the past few days.”
Jason Chow, a 20-year-old student protester, told Quartz that the Lung Wo Road police action has convinced him and his group that they need to “fight valiantly” instead of going out like “a lamb to the slaugher.”
In a letter to Hong Kong, which was broadcast on Radio Television Hong Kong, pan-democratic lawmaker Claudia Mo asked: “Since when our walking pace, casual speech and body language in the streets of Hong Kong would become targets of police aggressiveness?
“Is Hong Kong now a police state?”
But the police are victims too.
Mo says that the police have been “reduced to political tools” to solve a “huge political problem, which is the demand for true democracy in Hong Kong.”
Possibly in response to this assessment, assistant police commissioner Cheung said in the Admiralty clearing statement that police have “all along been politically neutral.”
The upcoming police clearance of Admiralty and Causeway Bay could very well be the last major police action of the Umbrella Movement’s occupation phase.
It could also be the police’s final chance to win the trust of Hongkongers again.
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