Yonden Lhatoo

Just Saying | Hong Kong police need to be whiter than white to shed their ‘black’ label as protests return

Yonden Lhatoo warns the public relations disaster gripping the police force over the recent arrests of officers has serious implications for tackling social unrest as the coronavirus crisis eases and anti-government protests return

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The public image of police in Hong Kong has taken a beating. Photo: Winson Wong.

Yonden Lhatoo

Published: 8:48pm, 9 May 2020Updated: 10:50pm, 9 May 2020

A top police officer told me an interesting story about the siege of Polytechnic University last year, when anti-government protesters of the militant persuasion had occupied the campus.

He recalled intercepting and arresting a group of youngsters trying to flee the war zone and how he was struck by the reaction of a petrified teenager among them when she was being booked.

“Absolutely terrified, shaking,” was how he remembered her. “She thinks I will take her around the back and shoot her. Absolutely terrified.”

A police armoured vehicle burns amid violent clashes between radical protesters and officers at PolyU last year. Photo: Winson Wong

This is the pervasive perception of our police force among large swathes of the population, even though Hong Kong’s men and women in blue are far from the murderous bandits that clueless kids, scurrilous politicians and assorted deplorables with vested interests would have us believe.