Discontent with Hong Kong police hits new high, poll finds
Activist blames officers' handling of Occupy and of autistic murder suspect
The gap between the proportion of people satisfied with the police force and those dissatisfied with it is at its narrowest since the handover, a University of Hong Kong poll shows.
Fifty per cent of people polled from May 29 to June 2 were satisfied with the force, down 6 percentage points from the previous survey, conducted in November.
By comparison, dissatisfaction rose from 19 per cent - before last year's Occupy protests - to 27 per cent in November and then 29 per cent this time.
"The Hong Kong Police Force has registered 21 percentage points [in net satisfaction rate], which is at a record low since July 1997," Dr Robert Chung Ting-yiu, director of the HKU public opinion programme, said yesterday.
"Their use of force against protesters and their treatment of arrestees have sparked lots of controversy," Icarus Wong Ho-yin, of Civil Rights Observer, said.
Just as the dust had settled on Occupy, police came under fire again last month for allegedly breaching their own guidelines when arresting an autistic man over the death of a 73-year-old man in Sha Tin.
Wong said Commissioner of Police Stephen Lo Wai-chung - barely six weeks into his new role - had done nothing concrete to tackle issues raised by the public over officers' use of force at protests and the lack of independent channels to launch complaints.
A police spokesman said the force would study the survey and was willing to listen to opinions.
Junior Police Officers' Association chairman Joe Chan Cho-kwong praised the force as currently "the best ever". He said police had "upheld the rule of law" and "maintained law and order".
The Fire Services Department was the most popular of all 10 disciplined services, while net satisfaction with the People's Liberation Army had changed little in the last two polls.
