From mutual help to crippling us

Chan Yik-chiu

Chairman of the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association

2014, 2016, 2019…… These three numbers are caught in my head.

“Do you hate the police?” I was asked. No, I do not hate them at all. Every country and city needs police in law enforcement. What I hate is the law enforcers who have inconsistent standards!

The relation between police and journalists went downhill since the Occupy Movement in 2014. After the end of the movement, the tension had shown signs of easing for a period of time. The Police Force invited journalists to join social events and various media trade unions to attend internal sharing sessions. The sharing sessions provided an opportunity for frontline police officers to understand the difficulties encountered by journalists at work, and a platform to seek solutions.

Although no consensus or under-the-table deal was made, the sharing sessions served as a proper avenue for journalists to reflect what happened out there. During the Chinese New Year in 2016, an unforgettable incident happened, and the memory has remained vivid in my mind.

That was the day of the Chinese New Year Night Parade. When I was filming the parade in Tsim Sha Tsui, I got a call from my company, and had to head towards Portland Street in Mong Kok right away. Holding a three-step aluminum ladder, I went from a place of celebration in Tsim Sha Tsui to a “field of battle” in Mong Kok. About ten minutes ago I was watching a group of dancers in colourful outfits, and now I was facing a troop of police officers in blue uniforms. The atmosphere was not particularly tense, but police was holding up a red flag. At that time, pedestrians had already occupied the road and more riot police came to stand by. The confrontation continued.

At around 2 a.m. in the middle of the night, the confrontation turned into a fierce conflict that I had never seen before. I held up the ladder, now a shield, to protect myself from the bricks and other objects falling from different directions. When the conflict moved to the Nathan Road area, I was attacked with bricks by protesters, and the attack did not stop even after I told them I was a journalist. Just when I felt desperately helpless, I spotted two undercover police officers waving at me and implying that I should walk closer to them. While using the ladder to protect myself from the brick attack, I ran towards them as fast as I could. Luckily I still had the ladder with me, or else I would have been truly injured.

After running away from danger, I thanked the two undercover police officers for their help. About half an hour later, I saw protesters throwing bricks and other objects at three police officers with no protective equipment. Out of professional instinct I took a few pictures, and immediately used the ladder as a shield to protect the officers until they were out of danger. We thanked each other after the escape.

Time flies. In 2019, the relation between media and police dropped to a freezing point due to social movements again. Countless of footages showed that journalists were being unreasonably attacked by police.

This is my eleventh year in the news media industry. Witnessing the relation between journalists and police deteriorated from a state of mutual help is disheartening. Every time when I see journalists being wrongly treated by police on live coverage, I think this group of law enforcers is merely venting their frustration on those who have no ability to fight back. It is heartbreaking.