Police 'should sign anti-Occupy petition'

Police officers should be mobilised to sign the anti-Occupy Central petition, says the former inspector behind yesterday's pro-police rally.

"As law enforcement officers, police should not tolerate any unlawful actions," said Joe Sin Chat-ching, who organised the march from Chater Garden in Central to the police headquarters in Wan Chai yesterday.

"The high-ranking people of the force should make it clear that we will arrest anyone who breaks the law, and I think they must mobilise officers to sign the anti-Occupy Central petition. Otherwise, you are encouraging the public to break the law."

The Police General Orders state that an officer should abstain at all times from any activity likely to interfere with the impartial discharge of his duties.

The Police Inspectors' Association last month said many officers, in their personal capacity, had signed the petition against the Occupy Central pro-democracy movement.

The Occupy Central movement plans to rally protesters to block the Central district if the government does not come up with a satisfactory plan to implement universal suffrage for the 2017 chief executive election.

But a pro-government lawmaker believes officers should remain neutral on the issue.

"The police … should not sign either on behalf of the Occupy Central movement or on behalf of the campaign against it," Liberal Party leader James Tien Pei-chun said yesterday.

He was speaking after signing the petition in support of the anti-Occupy Central campaign organised by the Beijing loyalist Alliance for Peace and Democracy. The petition calls for universal suffrage to be achieved "peacefully", without protesters occupying the business district.

Alliance spokesman Robert Chow Yung said the website used to collect signatures was hit by a cyberattack yesterday morning.

According to the website, over a million people have signed the petition at more than 600 stations across the city since the campaign started on July 19. Since Saturday, more than 20,000 signatures had been collected online. It ends on August 17.

Meanwhile, yesterday's pro-police rally saw a turnout of 2,200 people, according to police. Most were retired officers in their 60s.

Two mainland tourists from Guiyang joined the march.

"It feels good … We've never had such an experience on the mainland," said one of them, a 19-year-old correctional studies student.

"Police on the mainland sometimes need to deal with violent criminals, so I think we should support the police in keeping law and order."