Midnight, 19 Jan: College Student Arbitrarily Arrested when Photographing; Accuses Police for Planting Evidence in Bag & Threatening to “Charge You for Snatching Gun”
23yo Open University student Mr Ho was photographing the well-known “blue” restaurant “Kobe Dining” in the food court of Dragon Centre last Tuesday (14 Jan). 2 plainclothes cops arrested him for photographing faces. Ho was released on bail earlier. Through Sham Shui Po District Councillor Leos Lee Man-ho, 3 brutal activities by the police were disclosed in detail, including beating him up and thrown against the wall, an attempt to plant “evidence” of snatching gun, as well as forced to “smile” to everything throughout the process. Lee said that they are not ruling out following up on police brutality through legal means. Other human rights organisations criticised that if the accusations are true, the police’s abuse of public power has reached a morbid state.
Citing student Ho, District Councillor Lee Man-ho said that Ho was detained for almost 48 hours after his arrest, and was tortured 3 times. First, the cops demanded that Ho stood near the wall for frisking, and punched him in this crouch and abdomen areas. Later, Ho was asked to turn around to face the wall, and the cops intentionally pushed him towards the wall, causing Ho to crash into the wall and resulted in a nosebleed, which was ignored completely by the cops who had continued to detain Ho. During the process, cops insulted Ho’s “emotionless” reaction, and insulted him as “dummy”, “rioter”, and suddenly demanded that he “laugh quickly”, or else the operation would escalate.
Moreover, Lee said that Ho was made to remove his clothes for the collection of evidence. A cop suddenly pulled out his pistol and wiped it with Ho’s clothes, and threatened, “Believe it or not, I could charge you for snatching my gun”, and briefly placed the gun in the evidence bag. Ho refused to say anything without the presence of a lawyer, and the cop retrieved his gun from the evidence. Lee said that he would discuss with Ho and lawyers, and will not rule out filing a complaint towards the cops and following up through legal means.
Source: AppleDaily, translated by Hong Kong Columns