The New York Times (NYT) has suggested the three young Hong Kong protesters recently jailed by the city's Court of Appeal for violating the law should be awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize. No wonder the news spreads fast; nothing could be more ironic than this.

Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Alex Chow Yong-kang and Nathan Law Kwun-chung are not political prisoners, as claimed by their sympathizers, but criminal offenders who violated the law for their roles in an illegal protest in 2014. In July last year they were convicted for unlawful assembly by a magistrate who spared them imprisonment. Upon appeal by the secretary of justice, the Court of Appeal decided on Aug 17 to put them into jail for between six and eight months, respectively, after considering the seriousness of their offenses and circumstances of the case. Hong Kong adheres to rule of law; the Court of Appeal's judgment on this case should be respected.

"Unlawful assembly", an offense punishable under the common-law system, originated from the United Kingdom. It had been codified and stipulated in Section 18 of Hong Kong's Public Order Ordinance long before the city's return to China in July 1997, and has been retained as it does not violate the Basic Law.

Contrary to the misconception that "unlawful assembly" is an offense against the security of state, it is actually an offense against public order. Western media outlets like the NYT and the local opposition camp might have a valid reason to call these convicts "political prisoners" had they committed an offense against the security of state. But what they did was an offense against public order. Therefore, any reference to "political prosecution" or "political prisoners" in this case is a misnomer.

Another misnomer is to confuse "unlawful assembly" with "normal public meeting" - which requires only that organizers submit a prior notice to the police. The former is regarded as a serious crime whereas the latter as an exercise of right subject to legal restriction and regulation. When the legal restriction and regulation for the latter are violated, it becomes an illegal public meeting, a criminal offense with lighter punishment.

In the said ordinance, "unlawful assembly" is classified together with "riots and similar offenses", and defined as "When three or more persons, assembled together, conduct themselves in a disorderly, intimating, insulting or provocative manner intended or likely to cause any person reasonably to fear that the persons so assembled will commit a breach of the peace, or will by such conduct provoke other persons to commit a breach of the peace, they are an unlawful assembly." Its maximum penalty is imprisonment for five years on conviction as the trio was.

By construction of the said definition, if three persons are assembled, and two resolve to set upon the third, this is not an unlawful assembly; but if the three of them resolve to attack a fourth, it is. In the case of Wong and others, hundreds of their fellow protesters were excited and provoked; the situation was much more serious than when only three persons were involved.

From the hearing, it was revealed that the trio had discussed and assessed the risk of pounding the steel gate of the front area of the government headquarters for occupation, after a public meeting concluded on the night of Sept 26, 2014. They were preparing to attack with malicious motive, regardless of whether security guards might suffer bodily harm in performing their duties. In fact, the use of such violence on purpose injured more than 10 security guards.

Would such a violent unlawful assembly cause any person to fear that the persons so assembled had committed themselves or provoked other persons to commit a breach of the peace? The answer would certainly be a "yes". According to precedents in common law, a deterrent sentence should be rendered in such a case. The deterrent punishment handed down by the Court of Appeal in this case is still much lighter than the stipulated maximum imprisonment for such offenses.

In the judgment, judge Wally Yeung Chun-kuen reaffirms that it is wrongful to do something against the law in the name of self-claimed justice. The exercise of any right shall observe the laws, abide by and not contravene the laws. The laws should safeguard not only the persons who exercise the rights but also protect those who may be affected by the exercise of such rights. The public order is also protected by the laws, whereas the laws will not protect the criminals regardless of their slogans.

As one of the six Nobel prizes established in memory of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Peace Prize is supposed to be awarded only to those who have done a great work for enhancing fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for keeping and promoting peace. By suggesting the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the offenders found guilty of unlawful assembly, a crime of breaching the peace and against the public order under a common law jurisdiction, The New York Times is not only insulting the intelligence of members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee but is also disrespectful to the great inventor Alfred Nobel.

(HK Edition 08/24/2017 page8)