Two men and a woman were convicted of rioting at the District Court yesterday and will be sentenced today.　　This is the first time some of the participants in the Mong Kok Riot were convicted of rioting.　　The trio could be given up to seven years in prison.

Their sentencing draws attention from various sectors.　　The incident happened in the dead of night of the Lunar New Year Day last year.　　At the time in Mong Kok streets, people were assembled, pavement bricks were hurled, and a lot of shields and bamboo sticks were brought to the spot by trucks.　　Radical "localist" elements started a street riot on the pretext of preventing police officers from arresting a street hawker.　　The incident had paralysed the whole area of Monk Kok and shocked all Hong Kong people.

What was shocking in this incident was that the participants openly flouted laws and resorted to violence targeting at law-enforcing police officers.　　A police officer was still beaten, kicked and assaulted with hard objects after he was hurt and fell down.　　Fortunately some pedestrians and reporters rushed to protect him so that he was not seriously wounded.

As a matter of fact, the occurrence of the Monk Kok Riot is an inevitable consequence of the opposition's increasingly violent and law-breaking behaviour in recent years.　　The nearly daily street assemblies and demonstrations with the 79-day illegal Occupy Central as a climax had posed serious challenges to the rule of law and public security in the SAR and shaken the authority of law enforcement.　　Amid such social atmosphere full of hostility and unrest, a large-scale street riot eventually took place, turning Mong Kok in the dead of night into a killing field, scaring outsiders away.

The occurrence of the Monh Kok Riot also made many citizens to come to a sudden realisation: the usually peaceful and law-abiding Hong Kong had fallen so much that it now came on the verge of becoming a "beast city".　　If things went on like this, no one could ever sleep peacefully.　　As a result, loud calls to severely punish violent criminals resounded all over the city.

　　 The trio to be sentenced today include a female student from the University of Hong Kong, a diploma student with the Institute of Education and a cook.　　They were prosecuted for participating in the riot on Portland Street, hurling glass bottles and a bamboo stick at police officers respectively.　　They were arrested on the spot.　　Of the three, some had participated in the law-breaking Occupy Central and the "besieging" incident on campus.

As dignified university or diploma students and a young man with a decent job, why did they take to the streets in Mong Kok in the dead of night?　　Why did they want to participate in violent assaults?　　Are what they so called democracy, justice and even "safeguarding my city" or "indigenous interests" really so just and fair?　　In a society, if public security and order can be wantonly jeopardized, law enforcers can become the target of assaults and for venting anger, can such a society be said normal and hopeful?　　As university students and young people, they did not ask what contributions they had made to and what responsibilities they had fulfilled for society, the nation and their families, but just parroted what others said and did what they themselves wished without restraint.　　Their behaviour worries their families, humiliates the universities, and moreover splits society and causes unrest.　　The impact is very bad and serious.

Therefore, regarding the Mong Kok Riot, those who were arrested for breaking laws must be dealt with the law and punished.　　This is not to continue splitting society, let alone to make life difficult for the young people or university students.　　On the contrary, genuine democracy, law-abidingness and justice must be re-established in society.　　It must no longer be tolerated that right and wrong could be confound and two wrongs could be made a right.　　To regard anti-government and provoking law enforcers as heroic is absolutely wrong and intolerable by the law.

It must be shown to participants in the Mong Kok Riot and other violent incidents that prices must be paid for breaking laws.　　Whoever resorts to violence must bear the consequences.　　Young people must be responsible for their own behaviour and growth.　　How severe the punishments to be given to the trios will deliver a clear anti-violence message to society especially young people.

　　17 March 2017