Criminal Law, now in use across China, should add the act of assaulting police officers as an offence in the law in a bid to enhance the safety and morale of the police forces, a legislator said at the ongoing Third Session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislator.
  
Sun Guihua, a procurator from the People's Procuratorate of Harbin City, in China's northernmost Heilongjiang Province, said Saturday that an increasing number of police officers were attacked, ambushed, stabbed or shot to death in China while performing their duties in recent years.
  
In 2003, 84 officers laid down their lives, 326 got seriously injured and 3,674 others slightly hurt while carrying out their duties nationwide. In addition to physical abuses, many policemen and women were also often abused or insulted verbally, so that the enthusiasm and morale police officers and men in some localities were affected to some extent, according to Sun.
  
"An enhanced intensity to deal with criminal activities had an impact on the authority of the law," said Sun, calling for the NPC to organize relevant units and departments to step up investigations and study so as to add the revision to the Criminal Law as soon as possible. 

(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2005)