Activists plan to bring private prosecution against UK expat police officers in Hong Kong
A group of activists and lawyers plan to privately prosecute senior British expats on the Hong Kong police force for acts they allege amount to torture during the mass protests that have roiled the city. They will bring the charges in the British courts.
Nathan Law, a pro-democracy activist from Hong Kong, and Luke de Pulford, founder of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, on Monday launched a public call for witness testimonies with regard to accounts of physical and psychological abuse, as well as sexual assault. The group hopes to move forward with legal proceedings in the next year.
“This is one of the very few ways we can hold the Hong Kong police force accountable,” said Mr Law, as there are no such mechanisms in Hong Kong at the moment. “Justice has to be done.”
The Hong Kong police force, once widely known as “Asia’s Finest,” has come under severe pressure for what many protesters have alleged is police brutality. Officers have sought to quell mass protests with tear gas, water cannon, rubber bullets, batons, pepper spray and fists.
Repeated clashes between police and protesters – who first took to the streets last year against proposed extradition laws – caused public anger to mushroom. Some protesters said they were beaten by police even after being tackled to the ground and cuffed, while others said they were subject to sexual assault and rape while in police custody.
The police quickly became a symbol of eroding freedoms in Hong Kong, denounced by protesters as “black dogs” doing the bidding of Beijing and hurting people, rather than protecting them.
Over time, pro-democracy protesters added police accountability to their list of demands, accusing officers of undermining the same rule of law they claimed to defend. An investigation by a police watchdog agency in Hong Kong that largely exonerated officers in May did little to mollify those concerns.
Government and police officials have continued to defend their actions as apolitical and necessary to bring stability.
The private prosecutions Mr Law and others expect to initiate are “not an attempt to get money or reparations out of police officers,” said Michael Polak, a barrister advising the cases. “It’s an attempt to hold them criminally liable.”
Legal proceedings are also being advised by UK firm Edmonds Marshall McMahon, which specialises in private prosecutions. These allow any individual or company to bring criminal charges against another party. In this particular incident, the prosecution will need approval from the attorney general to move forward. Officers the group plan to prosecute haven’t been named.
“There is no doubt in my mind that British police officers have played an indispensable role in the brutalising and oppression of the people of Hong Kong,” said Mr de Pulford. “If the UK’s moral and legal commitment to upholding the rights of Hong Kong people cannot extend to making its own citizens answer for their crimes, it is no commitment at all.”
Only 45 expatriate officers remain on the 30,000-strong Hong Kong police force. Numbers have dwindled steadily since the force stopped hiring overseas in 1994 – three years before the former British colony was returned to Beijing – and began a process of localising law enforcement.
Three of the six regional commanders on the police force are British expats, according to Hong Kong Watch.
