In Hong Kong crackdown, police repeatedly broke their own rules — and faced no consequences
Leaked law-enforcement manuals contain guidelines often ignored in confrontations with protesters.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/...xg57Vrf5A8
HONG KONG — As violence escalated in Hong Kong over recent months, senior officials repeatedly ruled out a full inquiry into increasingly aggressive police tactics toward pro-democracy demonstrators.
Independent scrutiny would be an “injustice” and a “tool for inciting hatred” against the force, commissioner Chris Tang said recently, echoing the refusal of Carrie Lam, the city’s Beijing-appointed leader, to meet one of protesters’ key demands. A police spokesman emphasized that the force is adhering to “strict” guidelines in policing the protests, “benchmarked against international standards.”
A review of more than 100 pages of police guidelines and training manuals obtained by The Washington Post details these protocols surrounding use of force. The guidelines, however, were often ignored by police, who have misused chemical agents and used excessive force against protesters not resisting, according to experts in policing who examined dozens of incidents in consultation with Post journalists and in comparison with the police protocols.
[Read the full response from Hong Kong police]
The use of force by police is well documented in video of the demonstrations since they began in June. The Post created a database of 65 police use-of-force incidents through mid-November, verified for authenticity by a team of law students at the University of Hong Kong, to form the basis of the investigation. The students are part of Amnesty International’s Digital Verification Corps, trained to geolocate and analyze open-source videos.
The contrast between the police tactics and the rules set down in the manuals — most of which have not been made public before — has potential importance in any resolution as protests spill into the new year.
[Read the Hong Kong Police Force’s guidelines on use of force]
Concerns over a lack of police accountability underpin the sentiments fueling the unrest — growing fears that Hong Kong’s rule of law is being eroded as Beijing tightens its grip over the territory. Many in the city’s pro-democracy camp view the Hong Kong police as a means for China’s Communist Party to suppress unrest without resorting to direct intervention that could provoke an international response.
A police spokesman said no officer has been suspended from duty in connection with “any incident relating to the protests,” a step taken when an officer is being investigated for serious wrongdoing. No officer has been charged or prosecuted over protest-related actions.
Authorities point to an existing complaints mechanism, the Independent Police Complaints Council, that has been tasked with reviewing police behavior in relation to the protests. In response to questions from The Post, a spokesman for the police said their Complaints Against Police Office has received more than 1,400 complaints ranging from misconduct to assault, all of which “are being or have been investigated” with the independent council.
But experts say it is ill-equipped to handle the magnitude of allegations and falls short of international standards.
A culture of impunity now pervades the force, according to a current and a former officer, emboldening riot police to disregard their training or lie when asked in official reports to justify excessive force.
“The commanders are too afraid to upset the front-line officers, so if their behavior is not too far away from the guidelines, then they’ll just close one eye and ignore it,” said a 27-year-old officer. The incidents captured on video represent a fraction of the wrongdoings, he said.
“I’m waiting for the penalty against those officers,” he added.
An officer who left the force recently, dissatisfied with police conduct, added: “All those disciplinary rules are just being ignored now. The higher-ups are afraid to use them.”
Both the current and former officer spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution.
The indiscriminate use of force has led Hong Kongers to tolerate protesters’ increasingly violent reprisals against police. As demonstrators resorted to gasoline bombs and bricks, polls showed that far more people blamed the government and police for the worsening situation.
“You can look anywhere in the world, and be very much drawn to the conclusion that accountability is key,” said Gary White, a retired police officer with the Police Service of Northern Ireland who now consults on conflict management. This includes his own Northern Ireland, he adds, where the early police response to peaceful protests strengthened the hand of radicals in the 1970s and ’80s.
“If the police can get away with excessive and inappropriate use of force, and they are never held to account for it, what do you think is going to be the response from the people who are subject to that force by the police?” White said.
A police spokesman, in detailed comments emailed to The Post, said it is the “escalation of violence by radical protesters” that has compelled the authorities to use force.
“When situations such as illegally blocking roads, paralyzing traffic, unlawful assembly, wanton destruction of public and private property and violent attacks on people merely holding different views occur that seriously threatens public order and public safety, the Police are duty bound to take appropriate action to ensure public safety and restore public order,” the spokesman said.
Weakening accountability
The Post reviewed a full version of the Hong Kong Police Force’s internal use-of-force guidelines, the Force Procedures Manual, verified by two police officers and two lawyers. The document forms part of the Police General Orders, the rules governing police conduct.
[Hong Kong protesters allege beatings and torture by city’s police]
Most of the general orders are public, but Chapter 29 — which addresses the use of force — is not. These orders are mandatory, the document states, and “noncompliance will make an officer liable to disciplinary action.”
An excerpt from Chapter 29 of the use of the Hong Kong Police Department's Force Procedures manual.
The manual includes a table, known as FPM 29-02, explaining how police can apply increasing force to meet the resistance offered by a subject.
These rules were loosened ahead of protests coinciding with China’s national day on Oct. 1 to remove a requirement that “officers will be accountable for their own actions,” according to Hong Kong authorities. The revised guidelines also lowered the threshold for lethal use of force.
A spokesman for the Hong Kong police force in comments to The Post said it is “not appropriate to discuss use-of-force guidelines, as operational details are involved.” But, he added, these guidelines are “regularly revised.”
“The last regular revision, which was posted onto our internal website in late September, was done to provide more clarity to front-line officers on choosing the appropriate level of force when faced with different threats,” the spokesman said, acknowledging that the threshold for lethal use of force was lowered.
The principles, he added, “remain unchanged — that only the minimum level of force necessary to achieve a lawful purpose shall be used, and once the purpose has been achieved, the use of force shall cease.”
![[Image: force-procedures-manual-new.jpg]](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/world/hong-kong-protests-excessive-force/img/force-procedures-manual-new.jpg)
Melissa Hamilton, an expert on policing and criminal justice at the University of Surrey in Britain, noted that the guidelines appeared to leave too much wiggle room.
The document instead “indicates it is up to the officer to determine a reasonable level of force,” Hamilton said. “This makes it more subjective and, thus, discounts accountability for being overly sensitive, reckless, or intentionally engaging in unreasonable force.”
In addition, The Post obtained teaching manuals from the Hong Kong Police College outlining how recruits should apply force and resistance when in the field, and use their service weapons and batons.
The Post also reviewed sections of the Police Tactical Unit training manual, which provides guidance on the use of crowd-control equipment such as tear gas, beanbag rounds, rubber bullets and pepper spray.
![[Image: ptu-training-rubber-bullet.jpg]](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/world/hong-kong-protests-excessive-force/img/ptu-training-rubber-bullet.jpg)
![[Image: ptu-training-lethal-areas.jpg]](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/world/hong-kong-protests-excessive-force/img/ptu-training-lethal-areas.jpg)
The tactical unit comprises the riot police officers who primarily have handled the response to the protests. Two officers from the unit who attended training in 2018 said their instructors had begun a course on tear gas by stating that “you’ll probably never use this in your time as a Hong Kong police officer.”
A toothless watchdog
The Post’s database of 65 use-of-force incidents includes videos from reporters, local broadcast news outlets, student journalists and others between June and November. The incidents were chosen to encapsulate every crowd-control tool used by Hong Kong police, and to include police responses to both peaceful and violent protests. The incidents were evenly spread between each month. The videos offer a snapshot of police behavior in responding to the unrest.
The Post consulted nine policing experts from around the world, including Argentina, Israel, South Africa, Hong Kong, the United States and Britain, who analyzed the videos against the force’s guidelines and international standards, specifically, the United Nations’ guidance on the use of less-than-lethal weapons published in August.
The experts, who each reviewed a different set of videos, said they thought that Hong Kong police went against their rules in about 70 percent of the incidents reviewed. In 8 percent of incidents, the experts said the use of force could be justified under police guidelines. The remaining incidents were not sufficiently clear to reach a conclusion.
Experts noted, however, that videos capturing police use of force do not always illustrate the full picture of events around a specific incident. Their analysis was based only on the database The Post created.
Where available, the University of Hong Kong team found corroborating videos from different angles, and longer clips capturing more of the incident.
Lam, Hong Kong’s leader, has urged the public to trust the Independent Police Complaints Council to address police behavior. Yet the council — whose chairman Lam appointed in 2018 — has no power to call witnesses. Between 2010 and 2018, the council recommended criminal proceedings against only one police officer.
In September, Lam said she had formed a five-member international expert panel to provide advice on the council’s findings, which are due in the coming weeks.
In a November progress report, those international experts warned of limitations in the scope and powers of the council inquiry. They said on Dec. 11 that they were standing aside, citing disagreements with the council over the scope of the exercise.
“We ultimately concluded that a crucial shortfall was evident in the powers, capacity and independent investigative capability of IPCC,” the experts said.
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