Interview with Tsang Tsz Ming, District Councillor of the Yau Tsim Mong District at around 17:54 on May 10, 2020.
#FirstHand #Interview #May10 #MothersDay #HumanitarianCrisis
Tsang talked about dealing with the police on Mother's Day when police suppressed civilians chanting protest slogans and sing songs.
Reporter: Hello Councillor Tsang, when did you get here tonight?
Tsang: It was around 4:30pm, but there were a lot of people here already, so it took me a long time to get up here. When I was coming up here from the Mong Kok Road Footbridge, there were already a couple of very aggressive riot police pointing fingers at me and yelling at me, so it took me quite some time. But the situation here is even worse. Nothing much was going on on the first two floors of the mall, but when I got to the floor of the foodcourt, I ran into Inspector Yu Yuen-yan, who is the chief inspector of the police district of Mong Kok, who walked out of a District Council meeting with us just this Tuesday (5th May). When she recognized me, she said, "Oh, you, Tsang Tze Ming," and upon hearing this, the police officers on here side suddenly became aggressive towards me.
They wouldn't let me into the foodcourt; they said they need to ask for permission from higher-ups, and so on. I was just trying to perform my duties as a district councillor, to understand the situation at hand, but they kept on insisting that they need permission from higher-ups, they need to do this, they need to do that, etc. They also asked me if I would be bringing my colleagues with me on the way out, but the other district councillors and I were simply trying to do our job as councillors, as described in the law. I don't understand why we are being treated like this.
We argued for quite some time, and my colleagues must have heard my voice, upon which they just told me to get inside. It was pretty bad inside. There were around 30 riot police surrounding about 10 kids, young people, some of whom had their head pressed to the floor as some of my fellow councillors told me. It was pretty reckless for the police to manhandle such a fragile organ, it could have been a repeat of the incident a couple days ago, where a non-Chinese arrestee was killed after having his head pushed to the ground by police in the Tsim Sha Tsui district. But they had no awareness of the potential consequences of their actions, which is really bad.
They were also yelling at us the whole time, telling us to leave because they couldn't do their policing duties with our presence. They wouldn't even let us explain to the arrestees their rights, like their right to a lawyer. Nor were we allowed to ask them for their names and related information that would allow us to follow up on them afterwards. Police blocked us from doing any of that. At first they were just raising their voices at us, then three officers took out weapons and started filming us, saying that we were hindering their work. But we didn't understand what exactly we were hindering. It is pretty ridiculous.
There were the five of us councillors here tonight, there's me, Chu, Siu, Lee, and Lam, and we were just observing, but the police treated our presence with hostility. I don't know if this has to do with the District Council meeting on Tuesday, where we questioned chief inspector Yu. She waked out of the meeting with the rest of the police officers, and I'm not sure if it's because of that incident that they held a grudge against us, that today they were being extremely rude and aggressive towards us.
If you recall two nights ago (Friday 8th May), near the Good Hope shopping mall, they were starting to be like this. I can see the situation worsening, and we will try to address that. In the upcoming district council meeting, we will discuss the situation in the earliest moment possible.
Reporter: There was an interlude, where the riot police told us reporters the we should talk to the officers in charge of press relations, but we weren't able to find any press relations staff on scene. Did you see them around tonight?
Tsang: I didn't. As I told you, when I was up there surrounded by 10 riot police who are trying to get me to leave aggressively, it's obvious that they didn't have any staff on site to handle public relations or press relations. I saw chief inspector Yu making a phone call to her higher-ups, telling them that "Tsang Tsz Ming is here." So it is clear that in addition to these chief inspectors...
Let me put it this way: it is clear that the chief inspectors did not have authority on site, and I don't know who are the ones really in charge. There also weren't any public relations or press relations staff on site to handle the communication, so it was pretty chaotic. At least on Friday (8th May) there were still some press relations officers, despite being very aggressive and antagonistic themselves, but at least there were a couple of them there. Tonight there were no communications at all, which makes the situation even more chaotic.
You get these folks who think of themselves as "loyal and brave" [translator's note: this is the new motto of the HK Police, adopted in Nov 2019] abusing their power all the time. They are antagonistic to everyone around, including local residents, and this is the problem.
They keep claiming that Hongkongers are not friendly to them, but they themselves are the ones who are actively provoking and deepening this animosity.
Reporter: We know that around 10 people were taken onto police cars, and they should have been transferred to the Mong Kok Police Station. Are you or other district councillors planning any follow-ups with these cases?
Tsang: Yes, we know tentatively that 9 of them were arrested in the foodcourt for "unlawful assembly", another one was arrested in the shopping mall for "possession of offensive weapon". We will go to the police station to follow up right after this, because it will take some time for them to get there, as we take this time to soothe the emotions of the local residents here. As you can see there are still a lot of locals around, but the mall is still heavily stationed with riot police. I fear that if all of us councillors leave all at once, the situation might turn volatile very quickly, so we want to stay to keep everyone safe, and we will follow up with those cases later.
Like, now, you can see reporters rushing out, maybe something is going on outside. That's exactly why we want to stay here now.