The report, published by the Georgetown Center for Asian Law (GCAL), analyzes the Hong Kong government’s new crackdown tactic, which has proved successful: pressuring Western tech companies to censor the 2019 pro-democracy anthem “Glory to Hong Kong.” Eric Yan-ho Lai, a Research Fellow at GCAL; Lok-man Tsui, a writer, activist, and researcher; and Thomas E. Kellogg, Executive Director at GCAL, authored the report.

Excerpt from Section One (Introduction)

This report proceeds in five sections. In Section Two, we analyze the series of incidents related to the national anthem and “Glory to Hong Kong,” which led the government to seek an injunction. We also look at the steps that the government took prior to seeking an injunction. In Section Three, we analyze the decision of the Court of First Instance (CFI) that denied the government the request, largely on technical legal grounds. While the CFI failed to engage in any significant human rights analysis, nonetheless the court’s decision handed the Hong Kong government a rare loss in a national security case: had it been allowed to stand, the verdict would have represented the first significant such loss for the government.

In Section Four, we examine the decision of the Court of Appeal (CA), which overruled the lower court judgment and issued an injunction. In particular, we focus on the CA’s use – or, more accurately, misuse – of comparative case law to bolster its judgment, providing a false imprimatur of rigorous comparative analysis and justification. In Section Five, we consider what this case means for companies like Google, which were forced to respond to the injunction. We also analyze their response to the case, and to the government’s repeated censorship demands. In our conclusion, we ask whether the “Glory to Hong Kong” injunction is an isolated action, or whether it is the beginning of a new trend of much broader internet censorship in Hong Kong.