Google has refused a request from the Hong Kong police to remove a “misleading” YouTube video that appears to contain content of police brutality.

The request was filed between July and December 2014, according to the semi-annual Google transparency report. The Hong Kong Technology Crime Division requested unspecified YouTube footage – which Google says appeared to show a person being assaulted in a police vehicle – to be deleted as it “disseminates a false message” about the force.

Google, which apparently answers to no-one, has not complied with the request.

The report further indicated that the tech giants have complied with a solid zero percent of other video-removing requests from the authorities over the same period, whereas requests that come equipped with court orders have a 50 percent compliance rate.

There have been two high profile allegations of protesters being assaulted in police vehicles in Hong Kong in the last year.

Five activists that participated in the anti-north New Territories development protest in June 2014 said that police assaulted them after turning off the lights and lowering curtains in the van.

Another alleged incident occurred after a post-Occupy protest in Mong Kok on Christmas Eve last year. Then-19-year-old But Wai-fun complained that she was slapped and subjected to verbal abuse by three policewomen after being taken into a force vehicle.

Ng Chung-tat from the Civil Human Rights Front criticised the police request to Google as an impeachment against freedom of speech and an act of police abuse.

He said the police should clarify the situation instead of trying to delete the videos, adding that the force is suffering from “mainlandisation” (nice noun use).

“Everyone can have their views, you can’t remove the video because you don’t like it,” he told Apple Daily.

Photo: Laurel Chor/Coconuts Hong Kong



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