order (ordre public), or of public health or morals. During a demonstration on 1 January 1998, civil activists Ng Kung Siu and Lee Kin Yun extensively defaced the National and Regional Flags. Certain portions were cut out or torn, black ink was daubed over the flags, black crosses were drawn, and the word "shame" was written on the flags. The two were charged under section 7 of the National Flag Ordinance and section 7 of the Regional Flag Ordinance, which provide that a person who desecrates the national or regional flags commits an offence. The constitutionality of section 7 of the National Flag Ordinance and section 7 of the Regional Flag Ordinance were challenged by the defendants. The defendants were convicted before the magistrate, and were bound over to keep the peace on his own recognisance of $2,000 for 12 months for each offence. The Court of Appeal quashed their convictions. The Court of Final Appeal unanimously held that the provisions were justified and not unconstitutional, as they merely ban the mode of expressing one's message but do not interfere with the person's freedom to express the same message in other ways. The convictions and the binding over ordered by the Magistrate were restored. The decision was heavily criticised by Raymond Wacks in his article "Our Flagging Rights" in Hong Kong Law Journal. The Edison Chen photo scandal brought people to harbour doubts about the Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance, which criminalizes the distribution of obscene articles and the distribution of indecent articles without proper warnings to persons under 18. On 2 February 2008, Commissioner of Police Tang King Shing warned that sharing the photos via email, and even storing them on a personal computer, might be illegal, even if there was no record of distribution. This inaccurate statement of the law led to the objection of Leung Kwok-hung, who accused the police of sowing confusion and creating an atmosphere of "white terror" among netizens. Leung urged Commissioner Tang to clarify whether merely keeping the pictures violated the law. The police later amended Tang's statement, saying that looking at the photos or emailing them between mutual friends is not against the law, although posting them to Web sites is. The police's exuberance and inconsistency in cracking down on naked photos of celebrities triggered a public backlash from some netizens, who feel the police was curbing their freedom of