Lawyers seek answers over doxxing

It is pretty rare for the editorial team of Lawyers HK Facebook to write an opinion piece.

Our posts are normally strictly related to the law, including what is or is not permissible under the law, repostings of law-related media articles, and also opinion pieces from our readers or members on law-related stuff.

However, we think this is important.

Let us step back in time to two years ago. Why did we put this Facebook page together in the first place?

Almost all of us are in full-time jobs, and some of us even have young kids.

Under normal circumstances, none of us can really afford the luxury of diverting this much-needed extra time for sleeping to gallivanting around on the internet.

However, we passionately believed in two over-arching principles.

We were determined, as a group of lawyers, to say no to violence and to vigorously defend the rule of law.

So why have we decided to write something now?

Hong Kong has only two legal professional bodies. One of the two is currently going through elections for its core management committee.

Given the highly partisan environment, it is entirely within expectations that allegations have been flying all over the place as both sides vie for votes. In a way, that's how democracy works.

Some of us are even readying the popcorn, in fact.

However, one thing has caught our attention. One of the candidates has allegedly done something which goes very much against what this Facebook page stands for.

We refer specifically to the allegations printed in Eastweek weekly magazine on August 4 that candidate Selma Masood had, during the height of the riots last year, doxxed one of her fellow solicitors by naming him and stating that he was her PCLL course mate.

That same solicitor was the victim of a serious assault that happened in the midst of one of those riots late last May.

We even wrote about the incident on May 25, 2020. To add insult to injury, Masood allegedly added that the victim is a "complete a**hole."

And no. We are not making this up. There's a screencap in the Eastweek article. We are just describing what the comment said. The asterisks were verbatim, however.

Setting aside privacy issues, potential criminal liability, professional codes of ethics you know the not-very-important-stuff (sarcasm fully intended), there is the "minor issue" that this was in the middle of 2020 when doxxing was rampant, and people were identified, targeted and physically hurt.

What was Masood actually trying to achieve?

If she didn't think it through, that's poor judgment.

If she did realize the potential consequences and still went ahead and doxxed a fellow human being, a fellow member of the profession, and added insult to injury, that's just plain evil.

We would like to know from Masood as to which was the case.

Given how far below the mark this conduct can be, in terms of what we would expect from a professional lawyer, we invite Masood to clearly and unequivocally refute these allegations before the elections occur.

Voters have the right to know whether Masood is a victim of political smearing, or she's actually either got poor judgment or is such a nasty person deep down inside.

In the case of the latter, then she probably is not someone who should represent the profession.

And for the other candidates who are merrily bundling themselves with her, it's the same thing.

You really need to get to the bottom of this and let the rest of us know.

To paraphrase what former US secretary of state Colin Powell said: a mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of people he chooses to associate with.

Frankly, if the allegations are true, we respectfully suggest that bargepole distance isn't enough.

Lawyers HK Facebook Editorial Team