Embassy hits at police on arrest of shoemakers
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-09-22 09:21

The Chinese Embassy in Germany has expressed strong dissatisfaction over an incident in which a Hong Kong shoe manufacturer was treated violently by police in Dusseldorf.

The manufacturer, Michael Ho, was accused of copyright infringement by the police. Officers held Ho by the neck and pulled his hair before pushing him to the ground, as well as grasping tightly onto the hands of Ho's sister-in-law who attempted to assist him.

Shi Mingde, Chinese Ambassador to Germany, urgently summoned German foreign affairs officials and protested against Hong Kong citizens being violently treated and arrested by German police. And he demanded the German side investigate the incident and pursue the liability of the officers involved.

The embassy will immediately inform Hong Kong as soon as there is any new information or development, a spokesman for the Office of the Commissioner of the Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong said yesterday.

At noon on September 19, the Immigration Department of the Hong Kong SAR government sought the urgent assistance of the Office of the Commissioner of the Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong.

After liaising with the Chinese Embassy in Bonn, the office said the embassy had received complaints from the Hong Kong manufacturer Michael Ho, his wife and his wife's younger sister on September 17.

The incident happened on September 16 when four plainclothes customs officers went to Ho's booth and demanded to take away more than 100 shoe samples.

Ho resisted and asked the officers to produce evidence. The officers immediately called six more officers to the scene. After being violently treated, Ho was hand-cuffed and taken to a police station together with his partners. They were released on bail after more than two hours.

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