Hong Kong asks court to stop protestanthem from circulating online
After “Glory to Hong Kong” emerged as the unofficial anthem of pro-democracy protesters in 2019, the Hong Kong government has attempted to suppress its use. It has banned the song from schools. When it was played incorrectly instead of the Chinese national anthem at a rugby match in South Korea last year, the Hong Kong government demanded an investigation.
This week, authorities asked a court to ban the public performance and online distribution of “Glory to Hong Kong.” The move could trap US tech companies like Google and set up the first legal test of how much control the Hong Kong government can exercise over online content.
Hong Kong is seeking to ban the distribution or reproduction of the song “by any means”, including adaptations of the “melody or lyrics”, the government said in a statement. rack on Tuesday. It said the song had been used to “insult” the Chinese national anthem, “The March of the Volunteers”, and “caused serious damage to the country” and to Hong Kong. No date has been set for the court to consider the request.
Hong Kong authorities had earlier criticized Google for displaying the protest song under search results for the Hong Kong national anthem.
“We have already sent a request to Google to spell out the correct national anthem, but unfortunately Google refused,” Chris Tang, Hong Kong’s security secretary, said at a press conference in December. “I find this statement unthinkable and the people of Hong Kong will not tolerate it.”
The government’s request for an injunction against the protest song, made on Monday, is Hong Kong’s latest attempt to quell the remaining remnants of political dissent in the city, a former British colony that once enjoyed greater political autonomy. rowing. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, Hong Kong has undergone a sharp shift from its days as a prosperous hub for foreign companies to a frontier in Beijing’s campaign to ensure national security.
Last week, an annual vigil on the anniversary of the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square was halted by officers, who arrested and detained protesters and suspected mourners.
In seeking the court order against Hong Kong’s protest song, the government is citing its national security law, which came into effect in 2020 and gave Beijing extensive powers to crack down on what it deemed to be political crimes, including separatism and conspiracy.
If a court order is granted, content moderation in Hong Kong is likely to become more complicated and costly for US tech companies, said George Chen, general manager of consulting firm The Asia Group and former head of public policy for Greater China at Meta. He said the government’s decision to use the courts “opened the floodgates”.
“Glory to Hong Kong” can be found in Hong Kong on platforms such as Meta’s Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet.
According to Min Paoa centrist Chinese-language newspaper, the court request cited 32 links on YouTube related to the song.
Google and Meta declined to comment. Twitter did not respond to requests for comment.
US tech companies generally follow the rules of the countries and regions where they operate and sometimes remove content. The possible scope of a court order in Hong Kong was not clear. Critics say the national security law was written with the intention of policing even outside Hong Kong.
“Anyone in the world can violate Hong Kong’s national security law,” said Lokman Tsui, Google’s former head of freedom of expression for Asia Pacific. “The question is whether this order is comparable in scope.”
Refusal to comply with a decision by a Hong Kong court could put the staff and business of a company in the region at risk, Mr Tsui added.
For now, the efforts to suppress the song seem to have sparked a wave of interest in it: As of Wednesday, eight different versions of “Glory to Hong Kong” topped iTunes’ charts in Hong Kong.
Even when China was largely closed off to foreign internet companies, Hong Kong remained an exception for many years – a hub where foreign companies could operate relatively free from the censorship controls they would face on the mainland.
The escalation of the Hong Kong government’s efforts to ban speech could further damage the city’s image as a financial and economic center for China and Asia, said Willy Lam, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington think tank. . “We have already seen many MNCs move their workforce to Singapore and other places, now there will be fewer MNCs choosing to settle in Hong Kong.”
“This is another nail in the coffin for Hong Kong,” he added.
Joy Dong reporting contributed.