The Glory to Hong Kong saga continues, with further twists and turns!

At protest marches in 2019, it was not uncommon to hear 

Glory to Hong Kong being played and/or sung along the way

Four years ago today, Marco Leung fell to his death from scaffolding at the Pacific Place mall that he had mounted to hang up a protest banner after a one million-strong protest march on June 9th had failed to convince Carrie Lam to withdraw the much-opposed bill and the police had attacked protestors who had assembled at Admiralty on June 12th.  This evening, some Hong Kongers went over to Admiralty to mark the occasion and mourn his passing.  And like with and on June 4th, the police were there to mar the occasion.    

As of the time of writing, no arrests have been made of people attempting to mourn though.  Thank goodness for small mercies.  And it says so much about national security law-era Hong Kong that we are considering such matters to be mercies.  As is the fact that the great firewall of China has not descended upon Hong Kong.  At least for now.  

 

On a not unrelated note: Hong Kong Twitter was much aflutter last night upon the discovery that protest anthem Glory to Hong Kong appeared to be no longer available "on several major music streaming sites and social media platforms, after the government sought an injunction to ban the tune."  A reminder: the injunction has not yet been ordered; what with the court hearing for it having been delayed from June 12th to July 21st.

 

"The song rose to the top of Apple iTunes’ charts last week after the Hong Kong government sought an injunction from the courts to ban “unlawful acts” related to the song and any derivatives of it, including the lyrics and melody.  But," according to an Associated Press (AP) report that came out earlier today, "the song was no longer available on music streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music on Wednesday. The original version of the tune was also not available on Facebook and Instagram’s Reels function."

 

The conclusion that many freaked out folks leapt to was that the streaming platforms had pre-emptively removed Glory to Hong Kong ahead of an injunction being served.  But particularly after it was noticed that it was only the versions by the song's composer(s), Thomas DGX YHL, that had gone missing (with some other versions remaining availably), and Spotify issued a statement that it had not pulled the song, it was belatedly realized that this was not the case.

 

And while suspicion had then turned to Thomas DGX YHL (thanks in part to its response to enquiries sounding rather cryptic: i.e., [We] are currently handling some technical issues that are irrelevant to the streaming platforms, sorry for the temporary effect."), the party responsible was that which few of us had previously thought about.  Specifically, it was the distributor -- the middleman company which handled the Glory to Hong Kong's licensing to music platforms -- which had pulled Thomas DGX YHL's versions of the songs off the streaming platforms!  

 

Amidst the worry and confusion as to who had pulled (versions of) Glory to Hong Kong from the streaming platforms (and made them inaccessible the world over, not just in Hong Kong), many people lost sight of the following point that Rachel Cheung was good enough to remind us of: "How Google and other streaming platforms may react to the potential court order is secondary. The core of the story is that a mere song, a melody, several musical notes strung together are sufficient to be deemed a threat to national security... because it does what the government couldn’t, no matter how much they spend on [Happy Hong Kong] campaigns and patriotic education. The sad thing is it doesn’t take a court order for people to begin to self-censor. The song disappeared from streaming platforms."

 

Also, as per another of her Tweets: "Now is a good time to revisit what the composer of Glory To Hong Kong, PI told me last year: “If a regime were to react so severely that a simple song is banned and all who are involved are arrested, it shows that it is the regime itself that fears the people and its ideas.”"

 

Without taking away from these valid and important points, here's also noting that this whole Glory to Hong Kong legal saga really is becoming really weird.  For one thing, the media were barred from reporting the name of the Department of Justice's lead lawyer for the case and she was removed from the Hong Kong government directory but it has become public knowledge nonetheless.  And it doesn't help that she was found to have been involved in denying Tong Ying-kit, the first defendant in a national security law trial, a trial by jury! 

 

For another, the presiding judge, Wilson Lam, has come under criticism -- "a serious reprimand", in fact, from Chief Justice Andrew Leung -- after being found guilty of plagiarism in not just one but a number of previous cases!  Put another way: this would seem to call into question his judgement and also ethics!  So now the question is: will and should he be allowed to continue as the judge for such an important matter (the first major legal challenge to U.S. tech companies over politically sensitive content on their platforms in Hong Kong, in fact)?!