Jackie Chan under attack in HK over Tweets

Skooter report 08/27/10

HONG KONG—In his native Hong Kong, action star Jackie ChanJackie Chan’s Tweets about the hostage-taking in Manila have drawn a hail of Internet attacks

While the outraged is going on in Hong Kong criticizing the Philippine government for acting too slowly, Chan in the other hand was tackful, suggesting in comments in his Twitter account that the Philippine police faced a tough dilemma.

“If they killed the guy sooner, they will say, ‘Why not negotiate first?’ If they negotiate first, they ask, ‘Why not kill the guy sooner?’ So sad,” Jackie Chan wrote in his Twitter account.

He also pleaded Hong Kongers not to hate and direct their anger at Filipinos living in the Chinese territory. There are tens of thousands of live-in domestic helpers working for Hong Kong families.

Chan’s comments was not received well with his compatriots. He was told to shut up. Facebook users immediately set up three groups calling themselves “Jackie Chan doesn’t represent me” and drew a swing of spiky worded attacks.

“Shut up! Hong Kong people don’t need you. You side with outsiders and not your own. You will face karmic retribution for your disrespect for the victims,” Iris Yau said.

“He just doesn’t understand the pain of Hong Kong people,” Violet Wing wrote.

Chan’s publicist Edward Tang, didn’t respond to an e-mail from the press seeking comment. In the past the action star is known to making controversial comments such as causing a pandemonium last year by saying at a business forum that it might not be good for authoritarian China to become a free society.

Chan also made comments about Taiwan and Hong Kong’s democratic freedoms which enjoyed some free elections that made those societies “chaotic.”

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer