Commentary: Hong Kong rioters must not be allowed to do whatever they want and get away with it unpunished

(People's Daily Online)

On the afternoon of Oct. 13, rioters in China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) cut the neck of a police officer from behind when the latter was handling a case of criminal damage at the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) Kwun Tong station.

The wounded officer was sent to hospital for emergency treatment and two suspects were arrested by the Hong Kong police immediately at the scene.

“This is murder,” exclaimed netizens after watching videos shot at the scene, while a great number of netizens expressed their support for the Hong Kong police, saying “I hope the wounded police officer recovers soon.”

A violent attack on the police is a felony in any country. In the US, criminals who kill police are basically all sentenced to death, or receive life imprisonment in those states without a death penalty.

In Hong Kong, those who commit acts of deliberate murder or cause serious injury to other people can be sentenced to life imprisonment too, never mind the fact that the rioters cut the neck of police officer with a sharp object, clearly attempting to kill the officer.

If such savage acts are not seriously condemned and severely punished, this will further encourage the rioters and pose an extreme danger to the security of Hong Kong.

For the past four months, extreme radicals have regarded the Hong Kong police as their main target for attacks.

Violent rioters have time after time broken the bottom line of rule of law, attacked the police with bricks, iron bars, gasoline bombs, toxic, harmful liquids and powders, and even bitten off a police officer’s finger.

More than that, these radicals instigated hatred for the police, and even exposed the personal information of police officers and their family to the public. They have maliciously cursed the children of police officers, causing a great psychic trauma to the police and their family.

More and more Hong Kong citizens have realized from the brutal events that the rioters must be severely punished by law and their act of violence must be stopped with more powerful measures.

Hong Kong residents are looking forward to the courts’ steadfast efforts to safeguard the dignity of the rule of law, to adhere to judicial fairness, to defend justice and to prevent the cruel rioters from doing whatever they want and get away with it unpunished.