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Within the newest instance of shrinking area without cost expression in Hong Kong, authorities there have formally sought an injunction towards “Glory to Hong Kong,” the unofficial anthem of Hong Kong’s 2019-2020 protest motion. The tune, which surged in reputation after the federal government introduced plans to ban it, abruptly disappeared from music streaming websites this week. Whereas the injunction utility makes its manner by way of the judicial system, its potential acceptance places international tech corporations underneath new authorized strain to develop into complicit in authorities censorship. In the meantime, current stories level to the blurring of boundaries between mainland and Hong Kong approaches to safety upkeep, with the instrumentalization of social media accounts to spy on Hongkongers and the implementation of “deradicalization” applications to reform younger individuals incarcerated for taking part within the protests.
On Wednesday, Jessie Pang from Reuters reported that “Glory to Hong Kong” was now not seen on music streaming and social media platforms:
Numerous variations of the pro-democracy protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong” had been unavailable on Apple’s iTunes Retailer, Spotify, KKBOX, Fb and Instagram’s Reels on Wednesday after the federal government sought an injunction banning the tune outright.
[…] Numerous variations of the tune launched by the creator “ThomasDGX & HongKongers” on Spotify had been now not obtainable.
DGX Music, the music group behind the tune, stated on their Fb web page that they “are coping with some technical points unrelated to the streaming platform”. [Source]
On the time of writing, it’s unclear what prompted the technical points. As consciousness of an impending ban unfold, the tune topped the iTunes charts in Hong Kong. “I wish to preserve a file,” stated an area resident in her 20s who downloaded the tune final week following information of the federal government’s court docket request. “I’m extra involved if the large corporations would kowtow to this.” The tune was banned from Hong Kong faculties in 2020. Final September the federal government arrested a person for sedition after he performed the tune on a harmonica, and in November arrested one other man for sedition after he shared a web based video of the tune being performed at a sports activities occasion.
The injunction utility was submitted by Hong Kong’s Division of Justice. In a listening to of the case on Monday, the division acknowledged that it didn’t intend to focus on “the world at massive,” however moderately individuals who “are conducting or desiring to conduct” the distribution of the tune with the intention of inciting secession, sedition, or to violate the nationwide anthem legislation, in addition to those that facilitate such acts.
Choose Wilson Chan, a handpicked nationwide safety decide presiding over the listening to, determined to adjourn the listening to till July 21. He additionally ordered that anybody in search of to oppose the injunction in court docket register on the Hong Kong police drive headquarters by offering their identify, tackle, phone quantity, and ID card. On Wednesday, Chan acquired a “critical reprimand” from the chief justice of the Courtroom of Closing Attraction after it was revealed that he had plagiarized 98 % of his written judgment for one more case from the plaintiff’s written submission.
Because the Nationwide Safety Regulation was enacted in June of 2020, on-line content material removing requests by Hong Kong’s authorities have soared. Officers sought the removing of 183 objects from YouTube and Google search within the second half of 2022, marking a ten-year peak. Google complied with about half of these requests. George Chen, former head of public coverage for Larger China at Fb dad or mum Meta Platforms, advised The Wall Road Journal that if the injunction to dam the tune had been granted, it might quantity to the “opening of floodgates” of authorized motion towards U.S. tech giants. Hillary Leung from the Hong Kong Free Press described the potential implications of the injunction on tech companies reminiscent of Google:
On Google, Glory to Hong Kong is among the many prime outcomes when the time period “Hong Kong nationwide anthem” is searched. The tech agency has not acted on authorities’ calls to alter search outcomes to replicate March of the Volunteers because the rightful anthem.
The Hong Kong Web Service Suppliers Affiliation (HKISPA) advised Younger Submit final Friday that the duty of imposing the ban might fall on service suppliers, and because it was laborious for suppliers to dam particular content material, the end result is perhaps a blanket block on some or all of Google’s providers.
A director at US-based consultancy Eurasia Group, in the meantime, stated in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday that strain on tech companies might result in corporations withdrawing providers from the market, very similar to the Google search engine’s exit from mainland China in 2010. [Source]
Final week, proof emerged of one other instance of authorities making an attempt to instrumentalize tech corporations for what seem like national-security targets in Hong Kong. As Georgia Wells reported for The Wall Road Journal, a former ByteDance government claimed in a swimsuit towards his earlier employer that the CCP accessed Hongkongers’ knowledge by way of ByteDance’s subsidiary, TikTok:
The previous government claims the committee members [of the CCP] centered on civil rights activists and protesters in Hong Kong throughout [2018] and accessed TikTok knowledge that included their community info, SIM card identifications and IP addresses, in an effort to determine and find the customers. The previous government of the Beijing-based firm stated the information additionally included the customers’ communications on TikTok.
[…] In his submitting, Yu says that at ByteDance, members of a Communist Social gathering committee inside the corporate had entry to a “superuser” credential, often known as a “god credential,” to view all knowledge collected by ByteDance. Moreover, ByteDance maintained a “backdoor channel” for China’s Communist Social gathering to entry U.S. person knowledge, the swimsuit says.
[…] For the Hong Kong customers, Yu stated within the submitting that he noticed the logs that confirmed the committee accessed the person knowledge of protesters, civil rights activists and their supporters, together with customers who had been recognized from prior protests. The submitting additionally stated the committee monitored Hong Kong customers who uploaded protest-related content material on TikTok. [Source]
Some younger protesters who had been arrested and imprisoned for taking part within the 2019-2020 pro-democracy motion have been positioned in “deradicalization” applications aimed toward suppressing their political beliefs. In a brand new investigation for The Washington Submit, Shibani Mahtani interviewed a dozen former prisoners and staff of the Hong Kong Correctional Companies Division (CSD) to make clear the interior workings of this system. As one jail guard stated, “[B]y the tip of their sentence, the purpose is to make sure the will of those inmates to proceed doing political stuff is much less and fewer, and that they as an alternative search for methods to go away Hong Kong.” Mahtani outlined the scope of this system and the acute measures used to “deradicalize” these subjected to it:
The deradicalization program consists of pro-China propaganda lectures and psychological counseling that results in detainees confessing to holding excessive views, and it’s accompanied by a system of shut monitoring and punishment, together with solitary confinement, contained in the juvenile amenities, former prisoners and guards stated. As of April 30, 871 juvenile inmates had participated in this system, the Hong Kong Correctional Companies Division (CSD) stated, about 70 % of them charged in reference to the 2019 protests. Some are as younger as 14.
[…] Inmates had been made to observe Chinese language propaganda movies later that yr, together with “The Battle at Lake Changjin,” launched in 2021.
[…] Some stated they watched the movie a number of occasions over the course of weeks and needed to fill out worksheets to say who their favourite character was.
The CSD has additionally launched what it describes as an “instructional program,” titled “Understanding Historical past is the Starting of Data.” This system, in keeping with the division, is supposed to “help the younger individuals in custody to be taught Chinese language historical past, improve their sense of nationwide identification … and get again heading in the right direction.” Since July 2022, prisons have additionally began taking part in movies every day selling the nationwide safety legislation. [Source]
Many Hongkongers and rights activists have drawn parallels between Hong Kong’s deradicalization applications and Xinjiang’s “re-education” facilities when it comes to strategies used, though not when it comes to scale. There may be proof that Hong Kong officers overseeing this system may additionally have taken inspiration from Xinjiang officers’ strategies of dealing with these deemed “extremists.” In December 2018, a delegation from Hong Kong’s antiterrorism process drive traveled to Xinjiang to check strategies to fight terrorism and extremism. The duty drive included at the very least one official from the CSD. At the moment, Main Normal Peng Jingtang was a prime counterterrorism official in Xinjiang, serving because the deputy chief of workers of the Folks’s Armed Police. In January 2022, Peng grew to become the commander of Hong Kong’s PLA garrison, and three months later, the CSD publicly revealed the existence of the deradicalization applications.
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