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PART VI CONCLUSIONS
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ceased to dominate the demonstration before this stage, which confirms our im- pression that it had developed its own momentum. There was a measure of dis- turbance to the public through the shouting of slogans and processing in a busy thoroughfare; some provocative and emotional speeches were made; excitement was raised; traffic was dislocated at times and police orders defied.
428. In the light of the press coverage given to this demonstration and the retailing of personal experiences by those taking part, it is hardly surprising that many young people were encouraged to savour the fun, the excitement and un- accustomed publicity of demonstrating again on the night of April 6/7th. Furthermore, after the defiance of Police orders with comparative impunity on the night of 5/6th April, it is hardly surprising that they should have been tempted to take advantage of the temporary tilt which had been induced in the normal equilibrium of power and restraint.
429. The events of the evening of 6th April between 8 p.m. and 10.30 p.m. point to these factors as the direct triggers to violence. Unfortunately, from the oral evidence of the movements of the demonstrators during these hours, no entirely precise pattern emerges but, when coupled with newspaper reports and photographs, it is sufficiently clear that in place of the one group marching in Nathan Road on 5th April there were three or four groups marching up and down Nathan Road with banners on 6th April.
430. Having noted the effect produced by the arrest of one demonstrator and by one group marching through Kowloon on April 5th it seems to us with the benefit of hindsight to have been almost inevitable that the multiple demonstra- tions which occurred during the evening of April 6th should have resulted in the subsequent riots when consideration is given to the following additional factors:
(i) the added air of public anticipation and curiosity which drew crowds of
onlookers onto the streets; and
(ii) the increased resentment of police action in attempting to stop demon- strations by the arrests of the four demonstrators at Tsim Sha Tsui followed by those of TAM Yat Sun and HOR Wan Wah, and the apparent arrests at Jordan Road. There were indications that this re- sentment was intensified by the actual facts of these arrests or rumoured arrests having been considerably embroidered in the retelling.
431. Most significant in the events that triggered off the subsequent violence were: (i) the impression created on some people in Jordan Road that the young men who had endeavoured to demonstrate there and who were given a lift in a police land-rover to the Star Ferry had, in fact, been arrested without adequate reason, and (ii) the possibly independent, but possibly connected, march up Nathan Road by a group which had set off from the Star Ferry Concourse at Tsim Sha Tsui and which came into conflict with the police near Kimberley Road. The first