By Jerome A. Cohen
If there is going to be further movement toward progress in reaching a viable, if temporary, solution, focus must be on the demand for an independent investigation of police activity and the instructions given to the police by higher authority in the Hong Kong Government and the masters in Beijing. Insistence on all five demands is unrealistic. But this week’s resignation of the entire group of foreign police experts hired last September in an attempt to give credibility to the Hong Kong Government’s “Independent Police Complaints Council” (IPCC) and its anticipated report offers renewed opportunity to press for a truly independent investigation.
Such an investigation must have credibly independent and respected commission leadership and members, a scope broad enough to examine relevant government policies and overall instructions as well as individual incidents of police misbehavior, power to subpoena witnesses and documents, a vigorous, competent staff and an adequate budget. This is not rocket science but the Hong Kong Government police system has steadfastly resisted the initiatives that have been taken over many months to implement the proposal.
The current attempt by the Hong Kong Government to smear the foreign experts they invited by claiming that they fail to “understand Hong Kong laws” is disgraceful. Three months of experience attempting to cooperate with the IPCC convinced the experts that they had been invited merely to serve as decorations to conceal the toothlessness of the so-called “police watchdog”.