Charges for June 4 Organizers

Thousands gathered at Victoria Park to mark June 4 anniversary

When people gathered at Victoria Park on the evening of June 4 to mark the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, observers were pleasantly surprised the police didn't aggressively try to shut down the impromptu gathering even though it broke social-distancing regulations.

People thought perhaps for once the police had some conscience not to disrupt people to remember such a horrific event peacefully and with some shouts of slogans.

Lee speaks during the impromptu vigil on June 4

But today we find out the police were actually laying a trap -- they have now charged vigil organizer Lee Cheuk-yan, along with Albert Ho Chun-yan, Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong, and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai Chee-ying with inciting others to take part in an unauthorized assembly.

They will appear in court to face the charges on June 23.

On his Facebook page, Lee wrote today the prosecutions were "in retaliation" for exercising the right of assembly.

"When you look at the overall Hong Kong situation, police are abusing their power to arrest, the Department of Justice is abusing its power to prosecute and trying to [intimidate] the people of Hong Kong when we exercise our right to assembly," he told the media.

The national security law hasn't even been completed, and already the authorities feel emboldened to act as if it was in place.

If this is a bitter taste of what's to come, it will either embolden protesters further, or scare them into fleeing elsewhere.

Cheng was on BBC's HardTalk today

This afternoon I happened to catch a BBC interview with Simon Cheng, the young man who worked for the British Consulate General in Hong Kong who was disappeared into the mainland and tortured before he made a false confession about being caught with a prostitute.

The Chinese claimed he was a spy, proving that foreign forces were involved in the protests. But Cheng denies all this.

He is now in the UK seeking asylum. Cheng explained while he worked for the consulate in the business section, he was a front line protester during the anti-extradition rallies.

During the interview Cheng said later his bosses asked him to attend the protests as an observer and report back what was going on. He never told them of his activism, and he felt this was not necessary as he did this on his own time.

Cheng's disappearance shocked Hongkongers

Nor did he think reporting to his bosses on the protests would impact his safety on the mainland, nor does he regret what he did at all.

When asked how he would feel if millions of people took advantage of their BNO passports and fled to Britain how that would affect Hong Kong, Cheng said he felt it was better that Hongkongers fled from the clutches of the mainland than stayed in the city.

Everything is happening so quickly it's so hard to process everything. And when you finally catch up, it's too much to bear, not only individually but for Hong Kong as well.