Lead plaintiff on ‘honking injunction’ Zexi Li continued to call the Freedom Convoy “an occupation" Monday, prompting credibility warnings from the judge. Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber are on trial for charges including mischief, intimidation, obstruction and counselling to commit the same offences not committed from the events surrounding the demonstration in February 2022. Eight downtown Ottawa residents have been called to testify. The first week of the convoy was “difficult and near impossible,” Li, who is a 23-year-old government employee born in China, told the court. “The level of noise that was present and the effects as a result of the occupation,” Li said, as per tweets from MsCannabisCourt from the courtroom.“It was difficult to live as a human being and disruptions trying to work and lack of sleep and other effects of the occupation.”Defence Counsel Diane Magas objected to the use of the word “occupation,” to which Justice Heather Perkins-McVey warned Li, “We have been using ‘protest’ and ‘demonstration.’”“Well I feel it was an …” Li, who is not the first witness to attempt to testify based on feelings, responded before defence counsel objected again and she was asked to leave the room. “Asking the court to direct the witness to use the word ‘protest,’” Magas said. “‘Occupation’ is inflammatory. There are people living under real occupation.”.“We need to ask her to understand it will detract from her credibility if she continues to use this word,” Perkins-McVey said. Defence Counsel Lawrence Greenspon remarked it is not Li’s “position to determine” whether the Freedom Convoy was an occupation. “I will suggest that she uses protest or demonstration,” the judge said. “What she uses is up to her.”Li returned to the stand and the judge advised, “I would prefer you use the words protest or demonstration, when the lawyers object, it is for me to rule and not for you to answer.”“Okay,” Li responded, and continued her testimony, which surrounded the honking and the injunction. The crown attorney asked her to confirm her earlier remark that on February 4 there was “an organized honking.”“After the injunction [was] granted, there was some relief in the honking,” Li testified. “In the morning prior to the injunction, there was intense honking, after the injunction there was a prolonged period where there was no honking.”In the week of February 11to 18 there was “more organized honking at this time, where I recall a collective resounding honk, at 6:55 in the morning. And more scheduled,” Li said. Magas objected Li was speculating and the judge agreed. “Right,” Perkins-McVey said, “only what you heard.”“I’m not speculating, the times were less sporadic, honking at the same moment rather than being spread out. I recall it being on the hour, one instance I mentioned was at 6:55 and 7 a.m.”“At that time, during the occupation, sorry the demonstration, the honking permeated my existence,” Li said. “I was always under impact of the honking the frequency I referred to is in both...the honking happened so frequently I was always expecting more honking.”She said the horns sounded like “aftermarket” models making a “large noise” and “looked nonstandard to me from what I would normally observe.”They honked “all day and night, throughout the day,” she said. “Sounds like an air raid [siren] and train horns. There was an air raid [siren] under a tarp.”“Did you see this air raid horn?” the crown attorney asked. “I didn’t see it, it was under a tarp.”
