The Hong Kong police lag behind their foreign counterparts in terms of transparency, with their constant refusal to disclose details of the policy on the use of force, Apple Daily has found.

In Hong Kong, the police publicize a large part of the Police General Orders on their website but leave out several key sections, including chapter 29 on the use of force, citing the potential impact on their operations.

Another document, the Force Procedures Manual, specifies how front-line officers should handle matters and is also kept from public viewing.

There were rumors that the police eased restrictions in the general orders and the manual days before National Day on Oct. 1 last year, when widespread protests during the public holiday saw several officers fire live bullets in the course of dealing with protesters. A total of 629 people were arrested that day, hitting a record in the daily number of arrests since anti-extradition bill protests started that June.

By contrast, police units in Britain, Canada and the United States make their use of force policy public.

In the Californian city of Berkeley in the U.S., a revised policy on its police’s use of force was passed in the city council in July and uploaded online. Under the policy, the force applied on suspects is categorized into three levels: lethal, less than lethal and non-lethal.

Officers in Berkeley can use firearms or other lethal weapons only to protect themselves or others from what they reasonably believe is an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to themselves or other people. They have to give warnings prior to the use of lethal force.

Law enforcement officers shall not use pepper spray — widely deployed by Hong Kong police to tackle protesters — as a crowd control technique to disperse or move a crowd, according to the Berkeley rules.

They are also banned from directing shots of pepper spray at people engaged in legal speech or other forms of expressions protected by the U.S. First Amendment, or at those committing unlawful acts by non-violent or passive resistant means, such as sitting or lying down to block a street.

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