Hong Kong DOJ appeals High Court’s refusal to enjoin protest-related song ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ News
Voice of America, Cantonese Service, Iris Tong, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Hong Kong DOJ appeals High Court’s refusal to enjoin protest-related song ‘Glory to Hong Kong’

Hong Kong’s Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an appeal on Monday against the High Court’s judgment which refused to grant an injunction to prohibit “Glory to Hong Kong,” a popular protest song. The DOJ said that the Secretary for Justice Paul Lam applied for the injunction to discharge the Hong Kong government’s constitutional responsibility to safeguard national security by preventing and punishing acts that endanger national security and preserve the dignity of the national anthem.

In their appeal, the DOJ pointed out that the High Court agreed with the DOJ when it found that “Glory to Hong Kong” was a tool used to incite secession or sedition. The DOJ claims that their injunction sought to prohibit acts that plainly or potentially constitute criminal activities.

The DOJ further claims that the High Court rejected the injunction because it considered the injunction to be of limited utility. This is because the injunction only sought to prohibit acts that per se constitute criminal offense. It found that enforcing the injunction would contravene the procedure of cases that contravened Hong Kong’s National Security Law.

While the High Court did not consider whether the injunction would have satisfied the proportionality test, the DOJ argues that the injunction would have satisfied the proportionality test. The DOJ wrote:

[T]he restriction imposed on freedom of expression is no more than necessary to safeguard national security and would not result in an unacceptably harsh burden on the individual, and would have held in favour of granting the interim injunction.

In addition, the Hong Kong government previously expressed that “Glory to Hong Kong”, which had been mistaken to be Hong Kong’s national anthem, insults the Chinese national anthem. The DOJ also stated that broadcasting “Glory to Hong Kong” potentially breaches Hong Kong laws, for example the National Security Law and the Crimes Ordinance.

On July 5, the Eastern Magistrates’ Courts of Hong Kong found Cheng Wing-chun guilty of violating the National Anthem Ordinance, following the government’s critiques. He was convicted for allegedly insulting the Chinese national anthem because he replaced it with “Glory to Hong Kong” in a video posted online.

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