{"id":78394,"date":"2017-11-11T12:10:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-11T12:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=78394 "},"modified":"2017-11-11T12:10:00","modified_gmt":"2017-11-11T12:10:00","slug":"78394-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=78394","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong Moves Ahead With Controversial Anthem Law As Fans Boo Once More"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">2017-11-10<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p><div>&nbsp;<\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2017\/45\/20171113346e1fa2-f4f6-478f-b9fe-cd9db65c25b5.jpeg\" alt=\"20171113346e1fa2-f4f6-478f-b9fe-cd9db65c25b5.jpeg (622&#215;350)\" \/><br \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">A Hong Kong fan covers his face during the Chinese national anthem before a soccer match between Hong Kong and Bahrain at Mong Kok Stadium in Hong  Kong, Nov. 9, 2017.<\/span><\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&nbsp;AFP<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Officials in Hong Kong said they are moving to introduce legislation banning &#8220;insult or disrespect&#8221; to China&#8217;s national anthem by March next year, as soccer fans once more booed the March of the Volunteers ahead of a match on Thursday night.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Hong Kong jeered, turned their backs, and yelled Cantonese obscenities as the rousing anthem of the People&#8217;s Republic of China played over the loudspeakers at the Mong Kok Stadium ahead of a friendly match against Bahrain.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The city&#8217;s government is moving to enact a law mandated by China&#8217;s parliament, the National People&#8217;s Congress (NPC) to put a stop to the booing, with the government planning to submit the first draft to the city&#8217;s Legislative Council (LegCo) during the first quarter of 2018, local media reported.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The secretary for constitutional and mainland affairs, Patrick Nip, admitted that a lot of people are concerned about the proposed legislation.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;During the whole legislative process, there are many opportunities for the Legislative Council and also the public and for us to listen to the views and consider their views,&#8221; Nip told government broadcaster RTHK.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The NPC standing committee voted last weekend to add an existing national anthem law to an annex of Hong Kong&#8217;s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, while upping the maximum penalty for &#8220;disrespecting the anthem&#8221; to three years&#8217; imprisonment.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Insertion of the legislation into the annexes of Hong Kong and Macau&#8217;s Basic Law mean that the two cities must now take steps to incorporate them into their separate legal jurisdictions through promulgation or legislation.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">NPC delegate Maria Tam she believes people will show more respect for the anthem when there is &#8220;a price to pay&#8221; for not doing so.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">But she sought to reassure concerns that people could face criminal prosecution for failing to stand in informal situations.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;If you don&#8217;t stand, it doesn&#8217;t mean that automatically you&#8217;re guilty of anything because we have to prove that &#8230; you have the intention to insult or be disrespectful,&#8221; Tam told RTHK. &#8220;The standard of proof is still the same.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Complex reasons<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">A soccer fan surnamed Lai said he thinks the jeering is done for complex reasons, however.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;The main thing is dissatisfaction with the Hong Kong Football Association (HKFA), and the second thing is anger at the ruling Chinese Communist Party,&#8221; Lai told RFA. &#8220;This spills over into jeering at the national anthem, but there are still people waving the national flag and so on.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">He said he thinks a new law will likely put many fans off the behavior, however.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;Probably most people, myself included, would stop booing openly &#8230; that&#8217;s for sure,&#8221; Lai said. &#8220;But then there&#8217;d be no channel for the anger against the HKFA and the Chinese government.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;People would find some other way of expressing that &#8230; I don&#8217;t know if it&#8217;s possible to legislate for absolutely everything,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Meanwhile, Democratic Party chairman Wu Chi-wai agreed, saying that not booing doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean the same thing as respect.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;Even if we had this law in effect now, it couldn&#8217;t ensure that people had heartfelt respect for their country,&#8221; Wu said. &#8220;In forcing us to bring in a National Anthem Law, China will ensure that the exact opposite happens.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;It&#8217;s all for show, with any conflict swept under the carpet,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><br \/><\/p>  <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/hong-kong-moves-ahead-wtih-controversial-anthem-law-as-fans-boo-once-more-11102017105912.html\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">For detail please visit here<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;Hong Kong jeered, turned their backs, and yelled Cantonese obscenities as the rousing anthem of the People&#39;s Republic of China played over the loudspeakers at the Mong Kok Stadium ahead of a friendly match against Bahrain.&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}