This article introduces various laws regarding the criminalisation of offensive language and abusing against public officers in 5 cities and countries, including Hong Kong, the UK, the US, France and Singapore.
In the UK and the US, related laws are more lenient. Their laws do not directly protect dignity of police officer because of being humiliated with swear words. The UK only arrests people who swear in public area if they cause "harassment, alarm or distress". And for the US, swearing is even protected by right of speech. Their citizens' rights to use profanity against the police are under protection.
For France and Singapore, they both consider disrespecting police officers as crime and violation of these laws can result in heavy punishment.
And in Hong Kong, we have laws regulating the use of swear words at catein places or towards police officers with the intention to provoke a breach of the peace, nonetheless, we can barely find cases that were considered as recordable offences or crimes in the past.
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After knowing about laws of present Hong Kong society and other countries, what do you think? Should we have Hong Kong police protected from swear words? If yes, why do Hong Kong police officers have such privileges but not other occupations as well? Let's discuss here. :)
