[bobbiesehra]

My husband and I were unexpectedly beckoned upon last night at 1:00am by HK’s finest men in blue. Apparently they wanted to arrest me for taking down a poster in our lobby. I just thought the poster was a bit of an eye sore and took it down: it was basically all in Chinese and it had our building manager’s face on it (double eye sore). As it turns out it was actually for some election in October. So here we are sitting in our living room completely flabbergasted (thinking geese louise are we in communist China!!) has anyone ever heard of this happening? Christian and I were both trying to reason with the cops and they seemed to get it as we really didn’t mean any harm....

15 mins later…….

Yet they came back, this time there were three plain clothed policemen in addition to the three uniformed policemen from before. And again we had to explain the situation: they did admit that they thought the building manager was crazy and that she had taken this way too far, especially since she was insisting they arrest me (I'm 7 months pregnant). I can’t help but think: who would elect such an ignorant punce for public office?! This is the same punce who a few weeks ago refused to pay the building water repair man so no one had running toilet water for 2 entire weeks! So on top of sending police to our apartment at 1am, she’s insisting that they arrest a heavily pregnant woman. Oh yha lady I want you to be my public representative because you make such great judgment calls!


Seriously though is this the ‘norm’, arresting someone for taking down a poster?

As a side rant:
The cops knocked on the door and first asked for the lady from India, fresh off the boat apparently (as they wouldn’t talk to me directly afraid I might not understand them or harass them with a ‘tailor made’ piece of shit). I’m Indo-Canadian and my husband is Swiss-German. The police continued to speak with my husband about me (practically standing over me) until I finally said, “look I was born and raised in Canada, I work for the HK government just like you, can you please talk to me directly?” Thank the lord the cop looked ashamed, I think he genuinely felt like an arse. I realize the stigma attached to being Indian here, and I’m far from hard done by, but last night was just ridiculous (just the entire situation). I felt like saying, yes I speak English, I work in a bloody government sponsored program to effing teach your children English.

…………befuddled bobbie

[jimbo]

Yes it was total overkill but then wasn't taking down the poster a bit childish in the first place?

[Mattny81]

Haha Sorry to hear that you had this shit experience!

There are many eye sores in HK, but it is not my right, nor my job to take them down when they are not obviously offensive. I can understand the amount of police response into the matter, a better hour would have been nice. Hong Kong as well as Canada (or anywhere elections take place), It is a crime to deface posters for election candidates. The Law wasn't to discourage groups from sabotaging campaigns.

Arrest though would have been from the lack of proper police training here. I find most cops in Hong Kong lack the ability of critical thinking and problem solving. Discretion seems to not be in their vocabulary. This could have been handled by the much better.

As for the manager of the building hahaha She's s piece of work! Think of moving maybe?

[jgl]

So your building manager has also been elected to some kind of local public office? And is a complete loony that tried to have a pregnant woman arrested over a poster?

Sounds like great story to talk to one of the local papers about.

[hullexile]

Sorry to say this but I think you got what you deserved. As you didn't understand the poster how do you know it wasn't an important message? Removing an election poster would get you in trouble anywhere. Still I guess you won't be doing it again

[saphireruby]

With all the rules in HK from the ridiculously silly ones to the serious obvious ones. Why would you consider taking a poster down that wasn't on your property?

Were you so pissed of at her for the flushing water situation that you'd just had to endure, that you just thought that by doing this you were in some small way 'sticking it' to her?

You must have known that you were wrong to take it down regardless of how much you dislike the silly bitch. You'd have been better off putting a poster up next to hers with a picture of you on it and in English... 'I won't let you go without flushing water'.

Ridiculous that the police were called at 1am for a poster though. I'm sure that if one of the kids at the school had taken down a poster of the Headmaster, he'd had been pissed, the kids would be in trouble and it would have been dealt with during the day.

[KnowItAll]

>> This is the same punce who a few weeks ago refused to pay
>> the building water repair man so no one had running toilet
>> water for 2 entire weeks!

Next time you don't have water, you need to be calling a variety of government departments to bring them all in one by one - health and hygiene, sanitation, buildings departments.

Having said that... don't go around removing posters.

[sunniefaith]

Oh my goodness, how hilarious. I thought what big crime did you commit to warrant the 'middle of the night' knock on the door. Next time before tearing down any posters, please get them translated first!

[bobbiesehra]

Thanks for the replies everyone...

If had I known it was an election poster I wouldn't have taken it down. We just thought she was doing a karaoke concert or something. And yes perhaps just the look of her face did bother me a bit after the water incident. But I still think that this all went too far. Suffice to say I will not be taking down any more posters ever again and do genuinely feel like a punce myself for the unneeded drama.

JGL -Good idea about writing the local paper, I do think that this is definately extreme. The reason the police came back upstairs is because she was insisting they arrest me knowing that I don't speak her language and didn't understand the contents of her poster and also knowing that I'm really pregnant. That being said bless the cops for stating 'yes she is a crazy lady who is giving us a lot of trouble, we'll come back at a decent hour.'

a little less befuddled bobbie...

[shilo507]

Just one question - why did you take down the poster? As others have pointed out, you would be in trouble anywhere for doing that.

I also agree about the lack of discretion amongst HK Police having experienced it first hand, although at least some of the senior detectives have spent time seconded to the Met in London and are more reasonable.

By the way, you have no obligation to let the boys in blue in to your home. They need an arrest/search warrant to do that signed-off by a magistrate. Never open the outside gate to them.

I am not surprised that they came back a second time. They do have a habit of doing that. It's nothing to do with you being Indian. It happens to gweilos, too.

I trust the matter is now resolved and lessons learned? I assume that you were not actually arrested and your rights read to you? If you were arrested you would have been taken to a police station and the officer would have to take a formal written statement and you would have the right to a solicitor.

You had your rant and I hope you can put this behind you and move on.