Hong Kong officer reprimanded for 'I can't breathe' remark
14 June, 2020
Hong Kong police on Saturday (Jun 13) said that they had reprimanded an officer who shouted "I cannot breathe" and "Dark Lives Subject" as his product dispersed reporters covering a rally the night before.
The officer was part of a team of riot police giving an answer to protests on Friday evening in Yau Ma Tei district.
In a video published online that quickly went viral, he could possibly be heard saying "I cannot breathe" at the press as reporters were asked to go back.
He could also be heard saying "Dark Lives Matter, here is not America."
The phrase "I cannot breathe" has been embraced by racial justice protesters in the United States following death of George Floyd, a dark-colored man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis on, may 25.
Floyd died after gasping the term due to the officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.
Hong Kong's police force said the officer had been reprimanded for his comments.
"The officer possesses been rebuked and reminded to always present himself professionally and enhance his sensitivity," the force said within an email statement.
The same officer, discovered by his badge number, had shouted "Black Lives Subject" to an AFP journalist the same evening.
When asked what he meant by the expression, he replied: "Which means we will be the best on the globe."
China, alongside Hong Kong's police and city leaders possess seized on the united states police response to racial justice protests found in recent weeks in an effort to exonerate its unique reaction to protests found in the city.
Hong Kong police spent seven right months this past year battling huge and often violent protests, hammering the force's reputation.
A lot more than 9,000 people have been arrested, while officers fired about 16,000 tear gas rounds and shot three persons with live rounds, most of whom survived their wounds.
Rights teams and protesters accuse officers of regularly employing disproportionate force and an independent inquiry in to the police has been a main demand of the movements for the last year.
Law enforcement have denied all brutality accusations, saying their power matched that of protesters.
Previous month the city's police watchdog cleared the force of any kind of wrongdoing.
The finding did little to mollify protesters who have much time accused the watchdog to be stacked with government loyalists and lacking teeth.
A group of international professionals quit an advisory panel this past year saying it had been not equipped to properly investigate the police.
The coronavirus outbreak and arrests enforced calm on the city for the first four a few months of 2020.
But protests have restarted - albeit on a small and less violent scale - specifically after Beijing announced ideas to impose a countrywide security legislation on Hong Kong previous month.
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