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-43- : and became widely used in the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (“Anti-ELAB”) movement in July 2019 following public outrage over the Yuen Long attack on 21 July 2019. The Slogan was thus recontextualized in 2019 by protestors in the Anti-ELAB movement such that it took on a range of different meanings.

125. The Defence Experts concluded that by September and October 2019, the Slogan had become a catch-all phrase signifying the vague desire to recover what was lost and the need for fundamental change in Hong Kong, but it was simultaneously open to virtually an infinite range of possible readings of exactly what to recover and what fundamental changes were needed.

126. However, in his examination-in-chief, Professor Francis L F Lee agreed it would not be possible to deny that such “big” change may involve Hong Kong Independence. Towards the end of his cross-examination, Professor Francis L F Lee stated the Defence Experts’ conclusion that the Slogan was open and ambiguous and could be interpreted in many ways, so that, by definition, by 2020 there was no one single correct interpretation. In that sense, he could not say that Professor Lau’s conclusion as to the meaning of the Slogan was incorrect, nor could he say that it was correct.