{"id":26576,"date":"2024-05-08T00:06:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T16:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/?p=26576"},"modified":"2024-09-28T00:06:46","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T16:06:46","slug":"protest-song-ban-a-worrying-sign-of-shrinking-freedoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/protest-song-ban-a-worrying-sign-of-shrinking-freedoms\/","title":{"rendered":"Protest song ban a \u2018worrying sign\u2019 of shrinking freedoms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Responding to Hong Kong\u2019s Court of Appeal approving a government bid to ban the protest song \u201cGlory to Hong Kong\u201d, Amnesty International\u2019s China Director Sarah Brooks said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Hong Kong government\u2019s campaign to ban a song is as ludicrous as it is dangerous. Banning \u2018Glory to Hong Kong\u2019 not only represent a senseless attack on Hongkongers\u2019 freedom of expression; it also violates international human rights law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToday\u2019s appeal victory for the government \u2013 after a lower court ruled against it last year \u2013 is a worrying sign of the authorities\u2019 growing unwillingness to respect human rights and uphold their obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSinging a protest song should never be a crime, nor is it a threat to \u2018national security\u2019 as the government claims. The Hong Kong authorities must end all attempts to stifle human rights in the name of \u2018national security\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Background<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Hong Kong Court of Appeal today overturned a July 2023 decision by a lower court, which had rejected the Hong Kong government\u2019s decision to ban \u2018Glory to Hong Kong\u2019 due to concerns it would have a \u201cchilling\u201d effect on freedom of expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hong Kong\u2019s Department of Justice is seeking to ban the \u201cbroadcasting, performing, printing, publishing, selling, offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying or reproducing in any way\u201d of the song, which gained particular prominence during 2019 mass protests in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The song\u2019s lyrics and melody would also be banned. A protest slogan that also appears in the song, \u201cLiberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,\u201d is already banned under the city\u2019s National Security Law as it has been deemed a call for \u201csecession\u201d by the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government has previously said people who engage with the song in any of the ways described could be prosecuted under the National Anthem Ordinance, or even charged with \u201csecession\u201d under the National Security Law potentially leading to life imprisonment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, since 2020, the government has increasingly cracked down on legitimate expression using overly broad, colonial-era \u201csedition\u201d charges, penalties for which have greatly increased since the enactment of the Article 23 law<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court\u2019s decision sets out conditions under which the ban on the song would be legal \u2013 namely, on the grounds of the \u201cseditious\u201d intent of its sharing, playing or singing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practically speaking, however, the decision will be a powerful deterrent to freely expressing one\u2019s views through reference to \u2018Glory to Hong Kong\u2019. Amnesty International has documented a number of cases in which seditious intent or intent to incite to national security crimes have been claimed by the government and resulted in prosecutions, backed by the flimsiest of evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to international human rights standards, neither peaceful advocacy for a change in government or government policy, nor criticism or even insult to a state\u2019s institutions or its symbols, must be prohibited on national security grounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Responding to Hong Kong\u2019s Court of Appeal approving a government bid to ban the protest song \u201cGlory to Hong Kong\u201d, Amnesty International\u2019s China Director Sarah Brooks said: \u201cThe Hong Kong government\u2019s campaign to ban a song is as ludicrous as it is dangerous. Banning \u2018Glory to Hong Kong\u2019 not only represent a senseless attack on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":26577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image-id":0,"_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image-id":0,"recipients":"","recipients_refresh":"","recipients_refreshed":"","_hero_title":"","_hero_content":"","_hero_cta_text":"","_hero_cta_link":"","_hero_alignment":"","_hero_background":"","_hero_size":"","_hero_show":"","_hero_type":"","_hero_embed":"","_hero_video_id":0,"_hero_hide_image_caption":true,"_hero_hide_image_copyright":false,"_nav_style":"","_disable_share_icons":false,"_disable_sidebar":false,"_display_author_info":false,"_hide_featured_image":false,"_hide_featured_image_caption":true,"_maximize_post_content":false,"_reduce_content_width":false,"_sidebar_id":0,"_stretch_thumbnail":false,"byline_context":"","byline_entity":"","byline_is_author":false,"disable_related_content":false,"download_id":0,"download_text":"","show_published_date":true,"show_updated_date":true,"term_slider":"","amnesty_index_number":"","document_ref":"","amnesty_updated":"","amnesty_umbraco_data":"","footnotes":""},"category":[1711],"location":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-26576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-freedom-of-expression"],"datePosted":"May 8, 2024","mlpRelationships":{"1":26576,"5":27011},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category?post=26576"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=26576"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=26576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}