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Letters | Nearly half of Hong Kong has zero trust in police, but Carrie Lam insists it isn’t a problem
- Decades ago, the founding of the ICAC transformed Hong Kong police into a respected institution. Carrie Lam has undone all that in one summer, but still fails to recognise the danger of a ballooning trust deficit in society
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Why you can trust SCMP
It is 45 years since the founding of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which began to transform Hong Kong’s once corrupt police into a respected institution.
It has taken one summer of failed policies overseen by a tin-eared and arrogant chief executive and her cabinet to undo that success.
On a scale of zero to 10, 48.3 per cent of Hongkongers now rate their trust in police a zero; in the fortnight ending June 5, just before the June 9 protest, only 6.5 per cent of respondents had zero trust in police.
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All Hongkongers, whether they are for or against the protests, understand this total mistrust is a social disaster. But our chief executive still insists poor communication is the problem and so-called dialogue the remedy – the arsonist offering herself as architect to rebuild what she destroyed.
Hong Kong residents are neither blind, deaf nor socially isolated. They have personally observed, and told each other about, many instances of unreasonable police behaviour.
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The strategy of dividing peaceful demonstrators from aggressive protesters with heavy-handed police tactics has failed. Indeed, it has only radicalised the middle class, and frightened the business elite and tourists.
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