Force backs down after being accused of trying to whitewash the city’s history and role played by pro-Beijing radicals
CHRISTY.LEUNG@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Monday, 28 December, 2015, 11:45pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 29 December, 2015, 1:23am
Riot police prepare to clash with demonstrators in May 1967.
The Hong Kong police force has made an unexpected climbdown and is restoring its official account of the 1967 riots after causing a storm earlier this year by deleting parts of it.
A source told the Post the missing details would be reinstated on its archived website as early as Friday, and more historical details would be added to make the account “fuller”.
The U-turn was decided at a meeting of the Police Historical Records Committee yesterday.
It reverses a controversial move in mid-September to revise the official version of the riots, during which pro-Beijing radicals inspired by the Cultural Revolution sought to overthrow the colonial government.
The force replaced phrases like “communist militia” with “gunmen” and deleted detailed descriptions of events such as leftist mobs threatening bus and tram drivers who refused to strike.
Police were accused of trying to whitewash history out of political considerations. They were also ridiculed for claiming there was not enough space to publish full details online.
“[We are uploading the original version] to answer our readers’ calls and have no political agenda behind it,” the source explained yesterday.
“We think people nowadays are not into reading bulky and long paragraphs, but since they enjoy reading the full version, we are bringing it back.”
In addition to the original write-up, the history of women in the force and the Hong Kong Police College will be added to the website.
“We want to make the contents ‘finer’ and ‘fuller’, so that people can have a better understanding of police history,” the source said.
It is understood the committee is still reviewing the content and may upload the original version along with the new information on January 1 at the earliest.
Chinese University political scientist Dr Ma Ngok welcomed the U-turn.
“Apart from the public, I guess the force was pressured by its veterans who lost their colleagues in the riots,” Ma said, adding that he still did not see a strong reason for the force rewriting the content in the first place.
Lawrence Ho Ka-ki, an expert on Hong Kong police history and assistant professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education’s department of social sciences, welcomed the climbdown as a “good step”, but urged the force to work with scholars when archiving its history.
“The committee members are all officers and have their own way to interpret their history,” said Ho. “Having scholars accounting the history will add an objective touch.”
Retired officer Brian Coak, who lost a friend in a bomb attack in Causeway Bay during the riots, agreed.
“A full version should be written, but not written by current police officers who do not have the adequate skill and experience to do so. This should be compiled by professional historians,” Coak said.
Democratic lawmaker James To Kun-sun, who sits on the Legislative Council’s security panel, also welcomed the move, saying police must respect history in order to earn respect from the community.
There was a public outcry in September, and some senior officers were also understood to be upset, when changes to the “Modern Era 1945-67” section of the force’s history – in both Chinese and English versions online – were spotted by internet users.
The force was also condemned by the London-based Royal Hong Kong Police Association and many retired police officers who took part in the deadly riots.
One line that previously read, “Huge mobs waving Mao’s quotations and chanting slogans rallied at Government House”, was changed to, “Huge mobs finally rallied at Government House”.
Commissioner of Police Stephen Lo Wai-chung said earlier the content of the webpage needed to be trimmed to make the history of the force more accessible to today’s readers.
The update reduced the original from 1,221 words to 1,110 words.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1895907/hong-kong-police-restore-cuts-made-revision-its-official
