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Foreign police to help at WTO meet

Chloe Lai

Intelligence sharing under way as city prepares for December trade conference, says security chief

Senior foreign police officers will work with their Hong Kong counterparts to analyse intelligence and provide language assistance during the WTO meeting in December, the security chief said yesterday.

Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong also revealed to Legco's security panel that local police were already sharing intelligence with their South Korean counterparts.

Mr Lee was yesterday supposed to explain initiatives announced by Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen in his policy address. But legislators were more concerned with the security arrangements in the run-up to the World Trade Organisation's sixth ministerial meeting.

'As we're in the same profession, police officers from some other countries want to help us. Some senior officers will be working with us in Hong Kong during the conference,' Mr Lee said.

'They will be analysing intelligence and helping with languages. There will be protesters whose languages we don't understand.'

He also said local police had visited countries that had previously organised large-scale trade conferences to learn from their experiences.

But Mr Lee refused to disclose how many foreign police officers would be in the city or which countries would be involved.

He stressed the government was in constant communication with non-government organisations and added that local police had enough experience to handle violent protests - even on the scale of the anti-globalisation protest that rocked Seattle in 1999.

However, Mr Lee's response failed to convince Liberal Party legislator Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen, who said: 'You keep telling us you're talking to the NGOs, but you're only talking to NGOs in Hong Kong. How about those in South Korea?'

Mr Lee then disclosed that local police were sharing intelligence with their South Korean counterparts.

Two Democratic Party legislators, James To Kun-sun and Albert Ho Chun-yan, warned the security chief against overreacting.

'Protest culture in Hong Kong is extremely peaceful, but this one is going to be different from what we are used to. I worry the police will be over-sensitive and overreact to minor deviant behaviour,' said Mr To.

The security chief stressed that while the police would remain calm, they would not tolerate violence and bloodshed. 'Blocking roads and starting fires are totally unacceptable,' he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Lee said that to protect local people's jobs, there would be an annual quota for allowing elite foreign workers into Hong Kong.

Mr Lee also said there would be a marking scheme to verify if the applicants were genuine experts who could benefit Hong Kong.

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