Demonstrators occupy Harcourt Road, outside Central Government Offices, in Hong Kong on June 12, 2019. (EDMOND TANG / CHINA DAILY)

HONG KONG - Thirty-one Hong Kong civil servants, among 41 arrested, have been suspended from duties for participating in unlawful protests since last June, the city’s civil service chief said Friday. 

Sharing the number of suspensions up to the end of last year, Secretary for Civil Service Joshua Law Chi-kong said the Special Administrative Region (SAR) government had suspended the civil servants in public interest and in consideration of how their conduct reflected on the cadre. 

Secretary for Civil Service Joshua Law Chi-kong had said earlier that the government adopted a zero-tolerance attitude towards civil servants who violated the law

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He was speaking on the sidelines of the Legislative Council’s finance committee meeting.

Law said government departments concerned were continuing probe into the remaining 10 arrested people. 

Earlier, in response to a query by a lawmaker, Law said the government adopted a zero-tolerance attitude towards civil servants who violated the law. "We are extremely concerned about the arrest of individual civil servants for their suspected involvement in unlawful public activities," he said.

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He said the number of civil servants arrested for their involvement in unlawful assemblies accounted for a minuscule proportion of the cadre and was not necessarily representative of the conduct of the city’s 180,000 civil servants. 

heshusi@chinadailyhk.com