XI IS WISE TO BE TERRIFIED:

Others such as Lai only turned up at the event and lit a candle -- an action judge Amanda Woodcock ruled nonetheless counted as "inciting" people to join an unlawful assembly because of his fame and notoriety.

During mitigation on Monday, Lai's lawyer Robert Pang read out a hand-written letter his client had penned from prison which his team later released to reporters.

"If commemorating those who died because of injustice is a crime, then inflict on me that crime and let me suffer the punishment of this crime, so I may share the burden and glory of those young men and women who shed their blood on June 4," Lai wrote.

"Remember those who shed the blood but do not remember the cruelty... may the power of love prevail over the power of destruction."  

- 'The candlelight will live on' -

Chow, a lawyer who represented herself at the trial, used her mitigation to describe the convictions as "one step in the systemic erasure of history, both of the Tiananmen massacre and Hong Kong's own history of civic resistance".

She said Hong Kong's courts were "in effect affirming the unequal power wielded by the government" against critics by convicting people like her for taking part in protests.

"People moved by conscience cannot be deterred by jail," Chow added.

"Rest assured that the candlelight will live on, despite bans and ever more restrictive laws".

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