An appeals court has granted a Hong Kong government request to ban a popular protest song. The ruling deepens concerns about the ebbing away of freedom in the semi-autonomous territory.
Hong Kong’s appeal court on Wednesday banned the protest song “Glory to Hong Kong” — an anthem popularized during the territory’s widespread democracy demonstrations in 2019.
The decision makes the song the first to be prohibited since Britain handed the former colony back to China in 1997.
Why has the song upset authorities?
Demonstrators often sang the anonymously written piece during their pro-democracy protests.
Its lyrics include the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong; Revolution of our times,” and it had already become dangerous to play or sing after authorities crushed the demonstrations.
Officials have lobbied Google to remove the song from search results and video platforms, although with little success.
In one mix-up that particularly embarrassed officials, the song was played as the city’s anthem at an international sporting event instead of China’s “March of the Volunteers.”
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Its lyrics include the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong; Revolution of our times,” and it had already become dangerous to play or sing after authorities crushed the demonstrations.
In one mix-up that particularly embarrassed officials, the song was played as the city’s anthem at an international sporting event instead of China’s “March of the Volunteers.”
Although Hong Kong police said the content was a deliberate insult to China’s national anthem, Google left the videos online.
Hong Kong’s High Court last year made a surprise ruling against the ban, which it said could have a “chilling effect” on innocent third parties.
Poon said the injunction was needed as “criminal law alone would not achieve the public interest purpose of safeguarding national security.”
Since the protests were quashed and Beijing’s national security law enacted in 2020, public dissent has largely dissipated with most pro-democracy activists and opposition politicians either arrested, silenced, or living in self-imposed exile.
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