The police force is expanding a programme that reaches out to minority ethnic communities in an attempt to reduce tensions and raise the cultural sensitivity of its officers.
Thirteen new community liaison assistants will be hired, replacing the existing five, whose contracts expire at the end of next month.
The programme was launched in five police districts in response to a 2009 incident in which an officer shot and killed Nepali street sleeper Dil Bahadur Limbu.
A 76-day inquest found that Limbu was lawfully killed. But the tragedy gave rise to widespread public awareness and concern about how police handled cases involving ethnic minorities.
'The ethnic minorities demanded that we learn more about them and, at the same time, we also think we should improve our understanding of them. Also, members from some district fight crime committees expressed concerns about non-Chinese people engaging in crimes,' said Superintendent Joseph Tung Wai-cheung of the police public relations branch, who heads the project.
With such concerns on both sides of the ethnic divide, Tung said the liaison assistants were a useful bridge between police and minorities, especially because the force had so few non-Chinese officers.
Heina Rizwan Mohammad, 21, a Pakistani who is a community liaison assistant in Yuen Long, has given eight talks to officers about the languages, cultures and taboos of various ethnic groups.