Police have refuted media reports that an injured protester was struck by officers early Thursday morning.
At today's media briefing, Senior Superintendent of Police Public Relations Branch Kong Man-keung said about 100 radical protesters wearing masks in Mong Kok late Wednesday night ignored police warnings, triggering officers' use of pepper spray to restore order.
After the incident, a protester told reporters that police had struck him on his head. He later recanted that story, and told police he did not know who had beat him, but that it was not the police. He refused to be examined after being sent to hospital and left without being treated. He did not file a complaint.
The police charged three men aged 24 to 50 that night.
In response to a reporter's query concerning a police recruit who was no longer in training, Mr Kong said the woman had resigned before a disciplinary hearing concerning her posts on a blog stating that she had worn a yellow ribbon, a sign of support for the Occupy Central movement. She had not been expelled, he stressed.
He reaffirmed that Police must remain politically neutral, but that officers enjoy freedom of speech as do other Hong Kong citizens.
