“Glory to Hong Kong,” a common protest anthem of the town’s 2019 pro-democracy motion, has turn into a continual goal of the federal government’s national-security crackdown. The track incorporates the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times,” which judges in Hong Kong have dominated is in a position to inciting others to secession, and diverse protesters had been arrested beneath numerous rules for publicly exhibiting the slogan. In July 2020, the track was once opposed from Hong Kong faculties. In September 2022, a person was once arrested for sedition for enjoying the track on a harmonica. Upcoming that date, the Hong Kong govt introduced prison investigations later the track was once mistakenly performed at carrying occasions in playground of the Chinese language nationwide anthem. Later the federal government sought a courtroom injunction towards the track utmost June, the track was once in brief taken indisposed from streaming web sites, despite the fact that the prime courtroom nearest denied the injunction request. Then again, as Tom Grundy reported for the Hong Kong Detached Press on Wednesday, the town’s appeals courtroom sided with the federal government utmost moment to reimpose an injunction towards the track, and Google has already begun search-censoring hyperlinks to the track for customers in Hong Kong:
Utmost Wednesday, a courtroom opposed folk from “broadcasting, performing, printing, publishing, selling, offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying or reproducing” the track with seditious intent. The Court docket of Attraction sided with the federal government, overturning utmost date’s resolution by means of a decrease courtroom rejecting the injunction that cited separate pronunciation considerations.
The 32 movies indexed within the courtroom sequence have all been changed with a message on YouTube mentioning: “This content is not available on this country domain due to a court order.” Then again, some variations stay out there, as do variations on alternative platforms corresponding to Spotify.
[…] YouTube stated it had cloudless insurance policies for removing requests from governments around the globe, proscribing content material as a reaction to prison processes. Along with the 32 takedowns, hyperlinks to the movies on Google Seek will not [be] perceptible to customers in Hong Kong, it added. [Source]
Probably the most movies taken indisposed later the courtroom sequence come with instrumental and sign-language variations of the track, consistent with CNN. Then again, the South China Morning Publish reported on Wednesday that regardless of those take-downs, no less than 20 unused clips of the track were newly uploaded to YouTube, with some categorised as “backup” or “re-uploaded,” and that the track was once nonetheless to be had on Apple Song, Spotify, and Kkbox.
Jeffrey Dastin and James Pomfret from Reuters shared how the federal government’s censorship dangers alienating tech corporations and international buyers:
“It is not a desirable situation from the perspective of free internet and free speech,” stated George Chen, co-chair of virtual apply on the Asia Crew, a Washington DC-based trade coverage consultancy. He’s additionally former head of people coverage for Better China at Meta.
“Now the question is how far and how aggressive the government wants to go,” Chen added. “If you start to send platforms 100 or 1,000 links for takedown every day, this will drive platforms crazy and also make global investors more worried about Hong Kong’s free market environment. How predictable and how stable the policy environment is matters a lot to foreign investors, and Hong Kong is now at a crossroads to defend its reputation.”
Business teams, together with the Asia Web Coalition, which represents bulky tech companies like Meta, Apple and Google, have stated conserving a separate and viewable web in Hong Kong is “fundamental” to keeping up the town’s edge. [Source]
Zeyi Yang at MIT Generation Overview described how the federal government’s newly a hit bid for an injunction towards the track illustrated its try to pursue the twin targets of successfully imposing nationwide safety rules with out tanking its international recognition, and attractive tech corporations to agree to its prison requests:
Either side are in tight spots. Tech corporations don’t need to lose the Hong Kong marketplace or endanger their native workforce, however they’re additionally fearful about being observable as complying with authoritarian govt movements. And the Hong Kong govt doesn’t need to be observable as overtly combating Western platforms age agree with within the area’s monetary markets is already in abate. Particularly, officers concern global headlines if the federal government invokes prison legislation to power tech corporations to take away sure content material.
[…] The important thing residue between this motion and former makes an attempt to take away content material is that this can be a civil injunction, no longer a prison prosecution—which means it’s, no less than legally talking, nearer to a copyright takedown request. A platform may just arguably be much less prone to whip a reputational strike if it gets rid of the content material upon request.
[…] “The actual targets in this case, mainly the tech giants, may have less hesitation to comply with a civil court order than a national security order because if it’s the latter, they may also face backfire from the US,” says Eric Yan-Ho Lai, a analysis fellow at Georgetown Heart for Asian Regulation.
Lai additionally says now that the injunction is granted, it’s going to be more straightforward to prosecute a person in response to violation of a civil injunction instead than prosecuting any individual for prison offenses, for the reason that govt received’t wish to turn out prison intent. [Source]
Many researchers and human rights activists voiced important reactions. Lokman Tsui, a analysis fellow with the cybersecurity watchdog staff Citizen Lab, stated, “This injunction shows that Hong Kong is open for business but only if you are willing to comply with their requests for blatant political censorship.” Independence Area’s China Director Yaqiu Wang tweeted: “Very disappointed but not surprised. Between bottomline and values, international tech companies have consistently chosen bottomline. The [Hong Kong] govt can ban people from singing and listening to the song but it won’t be able to ban it from people’s heart[s].” Amnesty Global’s China Director Sarah Brooks wrote: “The Hong Kong government’s campaign to ban a song is as ludicrous as it is dangerous. Banning ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ not only represent[s] a senseless attack on Hongkongers’ freedom of expression; it also violates international human rights law.” The U.S. Circumstance Area stated the courtroom stop was once a “blow to the international reputation” of Hong Kong.
A few of this blowback can have made a mark throughout the Hong Kong govt. On Thursday, Ronny Tong Ka-wah, a member of the important thing decision-making Govt Council and a senior suggest, mentioned, “Under ‘one country, two systems’, we must be careful not to give people the impression that we are neglecting Hong Kong’s status as an inclusive society while safeguarding national security,” including, “After all, you can never eliminate [this song] from the whole world.”
It was once Hong Kong’s Court docket of Attraction that overturned the decrease courtroom’s dismissal of the preliminary injunction request. In a document printed on Tuesday by means of the Committee for Independence in Hong Kong, Alyssa Fong and Samuel Bickett analyzed how the participation of international judges in Hong Kong’s judicial machine undermines the town’s freedoms:
A vestige of British colonial rule permits familiar legislation judges from outdoor of Hong Kong to provide at the Hong Kong Court docket of Ultimate Attraction. There are lately 9 international nonpermanent judges (“NPJs”) serving at the courtroom from Australia, Canada, and the UK.
Traditionally, beneath the Modest Regulation, the presence of in a foreign country NPJs has benefited the Hong Kong judiciary and the status of the Court docket. Because the creation of the Nationwide Safety Regulation and Article 23 regulation in Hong Kong, on the other hand, the prison machine in Hong Kong has been reshaped to provide the Chinese language Communist Celebration’s authoritarian regime. At this level, the in a foreign country NPJs handover slight if any get advantages to the excess vestiges of the town’s rights-based sequence. Rather, the Hong Kong government are the usage of the status of the retired judges who sit down at the Court docket of Ultimate Attraction to legitimise their human rights abuses and the undermining of Hong Kong’s rule of legislation.
[…] Some in a foreign country NPJs have additionally at once participated in political circumstances and dominated towards political dissidents [at least five times]. Those rulings are specifically problematic as they’re old by means of the federal government to handover legitimacy to the crackdown.
[…] An alternative factor exists with admire to the 4 in a foreign country NPJs who’re individuals of the Area of Lords in the UK: Those twin roles pose conflicts which are tough if no longer unattainable to reconcile. [Source]
Utmost moment, Anouk Put on and Athena Tong printed a work within the Jamestown China Transient describing how Article 23 nationwide safety regulation facilitates the export of Hong Kong’s human rights violations:
The Safeguarding Nationwide Safety Ordinance (SNSO) offered beneath Article 23 of the Modest Regulation prohibits 5 forms of actions which HKSAR officers intend to claim as “offenses,” and has proposed provisions that are dense and criminalize the non violent workout of human rights age undermining rights to truthful trials and due procedure within the HKSAR.
The SNSO is designed to in particular goal collaborations with foreigners and international organizations and will increase the ability of the PRC to interpret the legislation within the HKSAR, additional eroding the town’s judicial self government and prime stage of self-rule. The SNSO’s international jurisdiction and extraterritorial clauses additionally echo PRC rules.
The Hong Kong Particular Administrative Patch (HKSAR) conforms to broader traits within the Family’s Republic of China’s (PRC) technique to human rights and global norms by means of echoing ways the PRC has old by itself dissidents each at house and in a foreign country. Those approaches might also provide as a playbook for alternative authoritarian and progressive authoritarian regimes.
The HKSAR and PRC make use of a number of an identical narratives in rebutting exterior complaint together with whataboutism and the narrative is that global human rights discourse is spinoff of western hegemony. [Source]
