'Explain Why Officers Appeared As Protesters'

A human rights group said on Monday that police must explain clearly whether any officers have dressed like anti-extradition protesters and whether they’ve provoked others into doing anything radical.

A founder of the Civil Rights Observer, Icarus Wong, made the remarks after a group of men wearing black t-shirts and black masks or gas masks helped riot police subdue protesters in Causeway Bay.

The men refused to say whether they were police officers when confronted by journalists.

Wong said this is more worrying than police’s apparent excessive use of tear gas and other weapons.

“I think the public is more concerned whether these are undercover police officers, whether they have provoked demonstrators in the past. For example, setting fire or throwing bricks,” he told RTHK’s Janice Wong.

“If these undercover police officers have a certain role… to provoke the demonstrators to do something radical or to escalate their action, it’s very different. And also it’s totally different from the police principle as a law enforcement agency,” he said.

The human rights campaigner also hit out at police for firing tear gas inside Kwai Fong MTR station and apparently aiming their guns at protesters in short range in Taikoo station, alleging that the officers had violated the safety guidelines provided by the weapons supplier.

He noted protesters were already trying to leave, so there’s no point to fire tear gas to try to disperse them or shooting them with pepper ball rounds. And, if officers wanted to make arrests, they had enough manpower to do so without using the weapon.

“It is totally excessive and it is very dangerous to shoot pepper ball projectiles in a very short range, because if the pepper ball hits any person’s head or eye, it can make very serious injuries,” he said.