Public Eye | Police treatment of autistic man deserves apology

Nothing provokes more indignation than seeing the vulnerable being abused by a bully. Indignation becomes disgust when the bully turns out to be the police, the supposed defenders of the defenceless in society. That explains why Hongkongers are nauseated by the police treatment of a 30-year-old autistic man wrongly accused of murder. It doesn't take a doctor to recognise signs of autism. The police knew something was wrong and called his mother but interrogated him anyway. When his family arrived, the police had already wrung a confession out of the autistic man and made his brother sign off on it. Imagine, someone else signing off on your guilt. They then hooded the confused suspect, searched his home for evidence, and returned to the police station where he was interrogated again while being videoed. They released the man without apologising 50 hours later when iron-clad evidence showed he was nowhere near the crime scene. Public Eye believes police officers don't deserve the bad-guy image they now have in post-Occupy Hong Kong. They were caught in the middle of a politically explosive situation during the Occupy protests. But mistreating an autistic man can only worsen their image. Say sorry for goodness sake. It costs nothing.

When are you not supposed to call a spade a spade? When it's a government political ad on television and radio. They're called announcements of public interest, or APIs, instead. Hongkongers are being bombarded with these taxpayer-financed APIs urging them to support Beijing's political reforms for Hong Kong. Political reforms? Yes, but they're not political ads, just public interest announcements. Truths are lies and lies are truths. Isn't that the doublethink George Orwell taught us? Public Eye doesn't know if these political ads, or APIs, really interest the public. But one Hongkonger wants the government to call a spade a spade by filing a judicial review. We'll let the judge decide when a spade is a spade and when it's something else. But we'll say this: a rose by any other name doesn't always smell as sweet. Sometimes it stinks.

Hong Kong is in the thick of a battle for hearts and minds. Government officials are getting up close and personal with the people by visiting the districts to hard-sell the political reform framework. And they're trying to win public opinion with political ads, sorry, APIs, on television and radio. Pan-democrats are trying to sway opinion the other way with their own district visits to convince the people the reform framework is fake democracy. Ah, public opinion. It holds such an exalted position in free societies. But what good is it if ignored? Both Beijing and the democrats have said they'll stick to their positions whichever way opinion leans. Besides, how can anyone be sure what the people are really saying even if opinion swings overwhelmingly one way or another? Pollsters had public opinion split so evenly in last week's British elections that they said it was too close to call. The Conservatives won big. Labour lost big. Public opinion. Bah, humbug.