Opinion | Hong Kong protests: if the government won’t agree to police conduct inquiry, the people can go it alone

Views on the Hong Kong police tend to run black or white. To protesters, the police are brutal thugs who collude with triads, shoot live rounds at students and fire tear gas in residential neighbourhoods.

To pro-establishment types, the police are Hong Kong’s last defence against anarchy, heroes who suit up for battle day after day to risk their lives for low wages while displaying superhuman forbearance under incredible stress. 

A formal, independent review of police conduct would be invaluable, helping to bridge this gulf in public opinion. It would also help to establish the ground rules for what the police can and cannot do under the law as protesters and police engage in increasingly extreme behaviour.

And it would provide a useful gauge of police credibility: was the infamous “yellow object” video doctored? Did police recycle fake news when warning against suicide attacks on National Day?

The problem is Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor surely fears that if she so much as implicitly criticises police, as Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung did after the Yuen Long triad attacks – much less convenes an independent review commission – the department will either openly revolt or go on strike. Police everywhere in the world tend to go all tribal and chippy when subject to increased oversight and criticism, which can ingrain bad habits and raise tensions.