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Occupy protester Ken Tsang says his beating by police is the tip of an iceberg. Photo: Sam Tsang
Opinion
Public Eye
by Michael Chugani
Public Eye
by Michael Chugani

Facts, hypocrisy and the outcry over police ‘abuse’ in Hong Kong

Michael Chugani says it’s a bit rich for critics to claim that beating of activist Ken Tsang is tip of an iceberg; try provoking police in the US and Europe

This is likely to make me a target of bricks prised from Mong Kok streets but I would like to stick my middle finger at those who claim police brutality is prevalent. If they want to know what police abuse really means, try poking an umbrella, yellow or not, at a cop in the US or Europe, both democracies.

These people, including Occupy protester Ken Tsang Kin-chiu, tarnish Hong Kong’s image with baseless claims that the beating of Tsang by seven policemen was the tip of an iceberg that only came to light because the media filmed it. What’s galling is that those who make such claims are themselves abusers of the law.
The police didn’t start Occupy or the Mong Kok riot. It was their job to end them. Those who put police through 79 days of hell with their illegal occupation have used Tsang’s beating to demonise the force. Why are they not condemning as thugs the Mong Kok rioters who bashed a policeman after knocking him down?

These hypocrites say being overworked cannot justify the bashing of Tsang who was convicted of pouring liquid on policemen. I agree. But then why do they use so-called root causes to justify Mong Kok rioters hurling bricks at police?

Opposition leaders accuse the police of double standards for not yet prosecuting a police superintendent who allegedly beat a protester with his baton. Double standards? Why are they not also demanding to know why they themselves have yet to be charged for their role in Occupy?

There is no alternative fact to morality. If you mount morality’s high horse you must embrace all its principles, not cherry-pick. Yet that’s exactly what these hypocrites are doing.

They have condemned the police commissioner for saying he is saddened by the convictions of Tsang’s attackers. Of course he has to stand by his men in the same way these hypocrites formed a protective ring around the Youngspiration pair after the Legislative Council president ordered them out.

These hypocrites want the police chief to apologise for Tsang’s beating. How about Tsang apologising for splashing the seven with a foul-smelling liquid? And why haven’t the hypocrites apologised to the public for the Mong Kok riots and Occupy. Writing this doesn’t make me pro-establishment, anti-democracy or a police lapdog. It makes me pro-facts and anti-hypocrisy.

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