A protester receives medical attention after tear gas and pepper spray were used by police during a protest in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok district in September last year.
Photo: tyrone siu/ReutersHONG KONG—A watchdog report into the policing of protests during the months of unrest that gripped the city last year has found officers had a duty to use force in response to increasing violence.
The Independent Police Complaints Council—criticized by opposition groups as toothless—reviewed several incidents that attracted hundreds of complaints accusing police officers of widespread abuse, including excessively firing tear gas and nonlethal bullets, beating protesters and colluding with gangsters.
The council didn’t deal with specific complaints against individual officers or make any clear judgments in what it called a thematic study to review police handling of the unrest that at times closed swaths of the city and drove Hong Kong into a recession.
Citing increased weapons seizures by police, the report said “it seems that our community is being dragged into an era of terrorism. It is the duty of the police force to keep the peace and maintain law and order, in protection of all.”
With few critical findings against police, it will likely ratchet up tensions in the city, where protesters have in recent weeks again been taking to the streets as the coronavirus outbreak has stabilized.
In the 999-page report, the council analyzed police actions during and after six events last year. It made 52 recommendations to the police force, including a review of guidelines on the use of tear gas and riot-control procedures.
The conduct of the city’s police force has been at the center of the protests since June 12 last year, when riot police fogged downtown streets with tear gas to disperse protesters who had surrounded the city’s legislature to oppose a bill that would enable extradition to China.
Hong Kong police make an arrest during a protest in Mong Kok this month.
Photo: afp contributor#afp/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesWhile the government withdrew the bill after mass street demonstrations, protester demands grew to include accountability for alleged police abuses and an amnesty for thousands or people arrested during the months of unrest.
Hong Kong’s government has said it would consider the IPCC report—which the council had delayed releasing for months amid a legal challenge—before deciding on whether it should commission a judge-led inquiry into police behavior, another key demand of protesters.
Critics have questioned the watchdog’s ability to effectively adjudicate the issues given that the members are appointed by the government and the body has no powers to subpoena witnesses.
Write to Natasha Khan at natasha.khan@wsj.com
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