My Take | Police cannot win with pregnant women

Hong Kong police have a problem with pregnant women. Maybe it’s time to issue explicit guidelines on how to deal with mothers-to-be in public, especially during protests and arrests.

The latest has to do with a viral video clip from last week in which multiple police officers were seen cursing and handcuffing a heavily pregnant woman with her hands behind her back. They then tried to lift her off the ground in that position, which seemed extremely painful. They took the cuffs off only when she was placed on an ambulance stretcher and after long heated arguments with a relative of the woman whom the police accused of being hysterical.

I don’t know about you but if the police treated my wife like that when she was pregnant, I would be hysterical, too.

It all started when the woman came out of a building in which she lived and was asked to show her identity card. From that point on, there were lots of arguments back and forth, and it became “he says, she says”.

But it does not look like the five or six officers, including a woman inspector and a sergeant, were needed to handle a single pregnant woman. You would think those two officers would be senior and well-trained enough to know how to de-escalate and calm the woman, but it doesn’t appear to have been the case. Some news reports say the woman had to be treated in hospital for shock.

You can’t find anyone more admiring of Hong Kong police, especially during the violent anti-government riots in 2019, than yours truly. But I was angry with the officers while watching the video clip. So what if a pregnant woman got a bit argumentative and uncooperative!