Judge Will Rule Next Week on Internet Ban of Hong Kong Protest Song

A Hong Kong choose stated on Friday that he would rule subsequent week on a authorities request to ban a preferred pro-democracy music from the web, in a case that would power Google and different firms to limit entry to the music.

At difficulty is “Glory to Hong Kong,” which was the anthem of the 2019 protests that ended with Beijing taking tighter management over Hong Kong. The authorities argue that the music is an insult to China’s nationwide anthem and will make individuals imagine that Hong Kong is an unbiased nation. The authorities has banned it from colleges and lashed out when it was performed, apparently by mistake, at sports activities competitions.

On Friday Judge Anthony Chan, after listening to three hours of authorized arguments, stated he would difficulty his resolution subsequent Friday. The authorities is looking for an injunction to ban the publication or distribution on-line of “Glory to Hong Kong.” Anyone violating the injunction may face jail for contempt of courtroom.

Tech firms are watching the case intently as a result of it has raised the specter of extra authorities management of on-line speech in Hong Kong.

“The business community should take notice — the courts won’t be able to protect them as long as the Hong Kong government can plausibly claim that national security interests are in play,” stated Thomas E. Kellogg, the chief director of the Center for Asian Law at Georgetown University.

Google has resisted the federal government’s public requests that “Glory to Hong Kong” not present up in search outcomes or on its sibling service, YouTube. But that would change if a courtroom ordered it to abide by the request. Like most tech firms, Google has a coverage of eradicating or proscribing entry to materials that’s deemed unlawful by a courtroom in sure nations or locations.

Google, which is owned by Alphabet, stated it could not touch upon the case, as did Meta, the mother or father firm of Facebook. Google and Facebook established places of work in Hong Kong over a decade in the past, and as we speak every has as much as a number of hundred staff within the metropolis. Apple didn’t reply to requests for remark.

The authorities in Hong Kong have more and more cracked down on what they think about dissent and threats to nationwide safety, focusing on people with arrests, bounties and prosecution.

At the identical time, the federal government is working to move laws by early subsequent 12 months that will goal what it thought-about subversive content material and shut “internet loopholes,” a transfer that would have extra far-reaching penalties and codify the ban into regulation.

Hong Kong has lengthy attracted international companies looking for entry and proximity to China, away from its censorship controls. It has been the one Chinese territory with unfettered entry to providers comparable to Google and Facebook, which pulled out of China years in the past.

When Google refused a request to take away the music in December, Hong Kong’s safety chief known as the corporate’s resolution “unthinkable.”

In courtroom on Friday, Benjamin Yu, a lawyer for the federal government arguing why the music must be banned, stated it had been used to “stir up emotions.” He pointed to the arrest of a harmonica participant who had performed the music exterior the British Consulate when mourning the loss of life of Queen Elizabeth II final 12 months.

Abraham Chan, a lawyer performing as pal of the courtroom to current opposing arguments, stated banning the music due to nationwide safety may disrupt the free circulation of knowledge.

“You can’t simply say, ‘Don’t worry about the chilling effects,’” he stated.

The Hong Kong authorities have arrested greater than 250 individuals beneath an expansive nationwide safety regulation that Beijing imposed on the town in 2020, geared toward stamping out opposition to the ruling Communist Party.

In distinction to “slow-grinding” felony instances in opposition to people, an injunction may give the federal government a fast path to proscribing content material on on-line platforms, stated Kevin Yam, a authorized researcher and former Hong Kong lawyer primarily based in Melbourne.

No firm or particular person was named as a direct defendant within the authorities’s injunction software, which included 32 hyperlinks to “Glory to Hong Kong” on YouTube.

But many worry {that a} courtroom injunction in opposition to “Glory to Hong Kong” could possibly be a step towards extra official management over the web in Hong Kong, the place the web stays principally freed from censorship regardless of Beijing’s heavier hand in governing the territory.

American tech firms like Facebook and Twitter had been blocked from mainland China in 2009. A 12 months later, Google shut down its China providers and rerouted customers to its search engine in Hong Kong, then a bastion of political freedom on Chinese soil.

Since the nationwide safety regulation was put in place, requests to tech firms by the Hong Kong authorities to take away content material on the web have soared.

Chang Che contributed reporting from Seoul.