Chief Executive Leung backs police over Mong Kok melee
Chief executive insists officers were provoked as he addresses public forum, and also says Exco members who quit deserve apologies
Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying defended the police and hit back at critics of his administration yesterday at a meeting in Tin Shui Wai, the new town known as the "City of Sadness".
He also took the opportunity to attack the pan-democrats' filibustering in Legco.
Leung started his speech by expressing support for the police handling of the melee in Mong Kok on August 4, when groups clashed over teacher Alpais Lam Wai-sze's verbal attack on officers the previous month.
"We could not tolerate the small group of people who used the opportunity … to express their personal dissatisfaction with our police force," he said.
In a rare move, he also announced he had ordered the education chief to submit a report on the Lam case.
Leung said: "I stress that the police force who carried out their duty to defend public order was fair, neutral, unbiased and acting in accordance with the law.
"As we can see on internet videos, there were protesters there who provoked the police in different ways … The Hong Kong police exercised forbearance, while enforcing the law."