Hong Kong's police chief pledged on Tuesday to better protect the city's lawmakers and fully investigate all threats and cases of vandalism against them following an attack on a prominent politician.
Several pro-democracy lawmakers met police Commissioner Dick Lee on Tuesday to press for a thorough investigation into the Sunday evening beating of Albert Ho, a lawyer and vice chairman of the Democratic Party, by men with batons and baseball bats. Ho was assaulted in a downtown McDonald's and has been in hospital since with a broken nose and a bruised face.
"If circumstances require us to provide protection to the lawmakers, then we will," Lee told the media. Lawmakers also complained of having received death threats and of frequent instances of campaign banners and other property being vandalised.
The attack on Ho should not be viewed as an isolated incident, and the police should take smaller issues more seriously to help prevent big attacks, said Audrey Eu of the Civic Party.
"There is quite a common concern among legislators and also other media figures that in the past when you've had problems of these attacks on public figures they have not been resolved," said Eu, who earlier this month received a threatening letter with a razor blade in it.
"We feel that maybe it's because the police don't really put enough emphasis on these sorts of attacks and somehow the public gets the perception that if you are public figure, you are game."
Vandalism, threats and occasional violence have marred Hong Kong politics for years, and it is widely blamed on crime syndicates known as triads with links to power.
In a particularly brutal case, Albert Cheng, an outspoken radio show host-turned-legislator, was slashed in 1998 and nearly died of his wounds. His two attackers were never caught.
Lee assured the lawmakers that the police took the threats seriously. He said police had since 2003 handled 17 or 18 cases of blackmail and criminal damage involving 10 legislators, a third of which had been solved. But Lee Wing-tat, Chairman of the Democratic Party, said that was "the tip of the iceberg."
After the attack, the Democratic Party's Lee said he did not think the attack on Ho was politically motivated but probably came about as a result of his work as a lawyer.
"Long hair" Leung Kwok-hung, an outspoken pro-democracy advocate, said he received threats almost daily but said he was startled by the assault on Ho. "We are all under threat if Albert Ho can be attacked in public," he said.
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