Hong Kong protests: police warn of legal action after district councillor Lester Shum calls for revenge over death of student Chow Tsz-lok
- Tsuen Wan district councillor Shum wrote on Facebook that police had ‘murdered’ the 22-year-old, who died after falling off a car park last November
- Chief Superintendent Kenneth Kwok of police public relations branch says the allegation is slanderous and a fabrication
Shum received the warning letter from police on Friday, a week after he wrote on Facebook that the force had “murdered” Chow Tsz-lok, a 22-year-old student who died after falling off a car park in Tseung Kwan O in November.
Calling on people to “take revenge”, Shum said in the post he had visited arrested protesters and refused to dissociate himself with those who had been caught with guns and bombs.
In a letter to Shum, Chief Superintendent Kenneth Kwok Ka-chuen of the police public relations branch refuted his remarks, saying his “murder” allegation was slanderous and a product of his imagination.
“As a district councillor, you should be a role model and say no to violence,” Kwok wrote. “But it is shocking that you not only didn’t condemn those rioters with weapons … but spread rumours encouraging the public to resort to such violent acts.”
Pointing to the injunction banning the incitement of violence online granted by the High Court in November last year, Kwok reminded Shum that the order was still effective.
“The relevant seditious acts could also possibly breach the Article 9 of Criminal Ordinance, and no one should test the law,” he wrote, referring to the colonial-era law against seditious intention.