A 30-year-old man was arrested in Yuen Long over the weekend after a post was published from his Facebook account, which claimed he would give HKD10,000 to any organisation for each Hong Kong police officer murdered.
The man, surnamed Chu, is reportedly an assistant at the Immigration Department, where he has worked for eight years.
The post allegedly published by Chu said local police had used excessive force during the Occupy Movement, and specifically pinpointed police commander Franklin Chu of influencing the decisions of the Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC), which monitors complaints made against the Hong Kong police force.
According to the SCMP, Chu had called the police claiming his Facebook account was hacked on Saturday afternoon, before being arrested a few hours later on suspicion of “misleading officers by false information” and “accessing a computer with criminal or dishonest content”.
Initial investigations have reportedly found that the post in question was made by Chu himself, and not hackers. A source told the SCMP that Chu had only cried wolf (or hacker, we suppose) after netizens discovered his unsavoury advertisement.
The Immigration has not commented on the case, as it is still being investigated.
Police cautioned civilians to keep crime prevention laws in mind when using the internet, as most clauses also apply to online conduct as well as the “real world”.
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