HK Government to Ban Protest Anthem

The song was the unofficial anthem of the 2019 protests

Just to make sure no one will every play the wrong Hong Kong anthem again, the government is seeing a court order to permanently bar anyone from trying to using music related to the song that became the unofficial anthem for the 2019 protests.

On Monday the justice secretary filed an unprecedented application to the High Court for an injunction against Glory to Hong Kong. The writ asked the court to restrain those harbouring criminal intent from "broadcasting, performing, printing, publishing, selling, offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying or reproducing in any way" the protest song.

March of the Volunteers is HK's official anthem

The injunction targets anyone who intends to incite others to separate Hong Kong from China, commit a seditious act, or insult the national anthem, March of the Volunteers.

The court order, if granted, would also prohibit anyone from playing the song in a manner that would cause it "to be mistaken as the national anthem insofar as the [Hong Kong Special Administrative Region] is concerned", or suggest that Hong Kong "is an independent state and has a national anthem of her own."

In addition the thorough court filing listed YouTube videos of 32 versions of the song, from instrumentals to it sung in Mandarin, English, German, Dutch, Japanese and Korean.

This move comes just before the fourth anniversary of the large-scale anti-extradition protests that saw 1 million and then 2 million people out on the streets on June 9 and 16, 2019 respectively.

The wrong song has been played many times

So just to make sure no one will ever mistake Glory to Hong Kong for the official Hong Kong anthem, it will make it seditious to play it in any form.

From now on, any country hosting a Hong Kong team for a sporting tournament will be terrified of playing the wrong song.

How does that inspire anyone to visit the city?