Public gathering last year wasn’t annual June 4 candlelight vigil court toldA public gathering that happened at Victoria Park on June 4 last year was not the usual candlelight vigil held annually by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, a defence lawyer argued in court on Friday.By law, a public meeting must be convened or organised by someone for a purpose, and someone must take leadership or control of the event, counsel Allison Wong said, citing the Public Order Ordinance.Wong noted that the event for which the alliance had sought police permission was meant to mark the 31st anniversary of the June 4, 1989, crackdown which occurred in Beijing.However, the gathering which eventually took place last year was not the same event, as the alliance did tell the public no vigil setup would be carried out, and also because the crowd shouted slogans that night which had nothing to do with June 4, the lawyer said.Wong was giving her final arguments in the District Court on behalf of defendant Gwyneth Ho, a former journalist charged with participating in the unauthorised June 4, 2020, assembly, for which the police estimated about 20,000 people entered the park that night.In her speech, Wong drew on video clips played earlier in court. Those clips showed defendant Chow Hang-tung, then alliance vice-chairwoman, saying publicly that the alliance would not have control over what would happen on June 4, and that owing to the police’s ban, there would be no stage, audio equipment or marshals managing the crowd.Wong further singled out the audible shouting of slogans unrelated to June 4 at Victoria Park in the clips. The prosecution said the purpose of last year’s public gathering was to mark the June 4 crackdown and to express discontent with the Communist Party in China and the Hong Kong government, Wong noted. She argued that the claim regarding discontent was not the alliance’s intended purpose, hence the June 4 event at the park last year was indeed a different public gathering. Prosecutors failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that only one public meeting occurred at Victoria Park that night, namely, the meeting organised by the alliance, and Ho was in fact joining a completely different event for a different purpose, Wong said.The court also heard the closing submission of Cheung Yiu-leung, defence counsel for Chow, on Friday.Cheung said the alliance’s then chairman and vice-chair, Lee Cheuk-yan and Ho Chun-yan, had repeatedly made public announcements before June 4 last year that no large-scale meeting would be held at the park that night. Instead, the alliance would hold a real-time candlelight vigil online and ask people to light candles in different places in a personal capacity, the pair said. “The alliance will light candles in Victoria Park in groups of eight people,” Cheung quoted them as saying.The defence lawyer said Chow repeated a similar message via a loudhailer in Causeway Bay on the afternoon of June 4, telling the public that the Victoria Park candlelight vigil had been banned and appealing to people to participate in the alliance’s internet vigil. She also asked people to light candles at places convenient to them.“if there were incitement, it must have been incitement to ask the public to join the online assembly, where no authorisation was required,” Cheung said. “There was not a single word Chow said to ask people to enter Victoria Park.”He said the prosecution, in trying to prove Chow was guilty of incitement, relied only on evidence that alliance members and some other people had gathered at the park’s water fountain plaza and walked inside the park together.It was a ritual for alliance members to enter the park together, Cheung said. Their presence alone did not amount to a public meeting under the ordinance.Before the trial, a total of 24 defendants originally faced prosecution that included taking part and inciting others to take part in the unauthorised assembly, contrary to common law and the ordinance. Sixteen of them previously pleaded guilty and have received sentences of four to 10 months in jail. Five other advocates of Hong Kong democracy, including Lee, entered guilty pleas at the start of the trial on November 1, further reducing the number of defendants to just three: Chow, Ho and media tycoon Jimmy Lai.The trial will adjourn until December 9 for Judge Amanda Woodcock’s verdict.By Y.S. Luk。 Rights and freedom of assembly should factor in court ruling says defence lawyerA Hong Kong court must strike a balance between allowing and infringing on the exercise of rights and freedom of assembly, in deciding whether to convict defendants over a banned gathering on June 4 last year, a defence lawyer said on Thursday.Robert Pang SC, defence counsel for media tycoon Jimmy Lai, also said the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that his client had committed the charge of inciting others to take part in the unauthorised assembly at Victoria Park.“Lai arrived and stood with Lee Cheuk-yan and others in the park’s water fountain plaza at 6.22pm, suggested that Lee light a candle, raised the candle and shouted some slogans. He only stayed there for 15 minutes and left,” Pang told the District Court in his final arguments. He added that Lai did not ask the public to enter the park.At the time of the event, Lee was chairman of the Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which had been organising the annual June 4 candlelight vigil in previous years. He pleaded guilty to three charges, including one of organising the unauthorised assembly, at the beginning of the trial on November 1.Pang said that neither Lai’s support of the alliance by his presence, nor reasonable foreseeability that people might go into Victoria Park after seeing the tycoon, equated to incitement.The defence lawyer further asked the District Court to consider if a conviction was necessary when balanced against the defendants’ rights, a legal principle known as the proportionality test, which he said was used by the Supreme Court in London this year on a case of the British government’s prosecution of Ziegler and others. The Hong Kong court should take into account not only the police’s use or misuse of their power to control the crowds at the scene on the day in question, but also whether it was being proportionate in convicting and sentencing the defendants, given their rights, Pang said. Before the current trial, the latter was not practised in Hong Kong’s legal system.Only the alliance could appeal against the police’s prohibition of the June 4 candlelight vigil, but it did not, and hence ordinary people were denied their rights and freedom of assembly in Victoria Park on June 4 last year, Pang argued.“The court could not control whether or not to prosecute, but it could control whether or not the prosecution would lead to conviction,” he said, referring to the proportionality test.Pang went on to say that a duty of the police was to facilitate Hong Kong people’s organisation of public rallies, not to ban it. According to Superintendent Josephine Chow’s testimony in court, the police did not consult the government’s Department of Health on precautions to prevent infections and the spread of Covid-19, or impose conditions on the alliance such that the rally could proceed, he noted.The court should consider this point as well in using the proportionality test, Pang suggested.Meanwhile, the prosecution, in its closing statements, argued that the organising alliance and its allies had made an appointment to gather at the park’s water fountain plaza on June 4 last year and to continue with the yearly candlelight vigil.“Otherwise, why did these people know where and when to meet? Some of the defendants were not members of the [alliance],” head prosecutor Laura Ng asked. Ng also pointed out that Lee had publicly announced the alliance would enter the park on the night of June 4, but had mentioned just once in public the alliance’s intention to go inside as a group of its own.The prosecutor said people at the park that night followed Lee’s actions; for instance, the football pitches became silent when he called for a minute of silence to be observed, and they then raised candles and sang songs. These members of the public were acting as if they were attending the same meeting, Ng said.Lai’s act of incitement began when he showed up at the water fountain plaza, stood with Lee, suggested that Lee light the candles, and shouted slogans, Ng said. They acted together to show the world their will to resist the police’s ban, she said.Defendant Chow Hang-tung, then vice-chairwoman of the alliance, followed Lee’s actions, proving she was participating in the meeting organised by Lee, Ng said.On Gwyneth Ho, Ng described this defendant as a former journalist who was very assertive of her civil rights and was an alert person. However, Ho seemed evasive when answering certain questions in court, such as on where she had obtained the candles and flowers, or with whom she had entered the park, the prosecutor said.Ho’s group of eight people turned up at the park early so that they could occupy a spot on the football pitch where the stage used to be set up, and they then sat near Lee’s group, Ng said, suggesting that Ho was guilty of the charge of participating in the unauthorised assembly.On Friday, the defence lawyer for Chow will present to Judge Amanda Woodcock his final arguments against her charges of taking part and of inciting others to take part in the banned June 4 vigil.By Y.S. Luk。