Arrest over online harassment of police officer's daughter

A 20-year-old man was arrested yesterday on a charge of criminal intimidation of a police officer's daughter amid what the force alleges is a spate of online harassment of officers and their families.

The man, who was arrested in Wan Chai, was accused of sending a threatening message to the officer's daughter, police said, without describing the message.

It is understood that the man posted on Hong Kong Golden Forum, the city's Reddit, saying he had heard rumours that HK$600,000 had been offered to "chop off the limbs" of the girl, a Form One student.

The officer was said to be a sergeant who has mainly been stationed in Mong Kok separating Occupy protesters and their opponents. Police said the officer reported the intimidation on Sunday, saying that someone had been tasked to attack a member of his family. Internet users had also been urged to spread photographs of him online.

Chief Superintendent Steve Hui Chun-tak, of the police public relations bureau, said there had been other cases of people uploading the personal information of police officers and families to the internet, where they were made targets of personal attack on social media. "Some people even called on others to bully our officers' children at school ... The police condemn this cyberbullying act," he said.

Meanwhile, the latest edition of police newspaper Offbeat is almost entirely devoted to messages of support to frontline officers dealing with the Occupy protests. Offbeat's support came after a leader of the Junior Police Officers Association said morale had sunk to an all-time low due to the stress of Occupy.