Hong Kong (AFP)
Hong Kong police announced on Friday an investigation into the fact that spectators booed the Chinese anthem and chanted pro-Hong Kong slogans as they watched the Tokyo Olympics on a giant screen in a shopping mall.
The former British colony achieved its best Games, with gold in foil from Edgar Cheung and two silver medals in swimming for Siobhan Bernadette Haughey.
This success comes in a complicated context in the territory of Southeast China, which is the subject of a strong takeover by the Chinese central power, two years after the immense popular protest of 2019.
Hundreds of fans gathered in a mall on Monday to watch Edgard Cheung's performance together, exhilarated when he won his Olympic title.
During the medal ceremony, some fans first whistled the Chinese anthem, before chanting "We are Hong Kong", a scene broadcast live by local televisions.
"We are Hong Kong" is an expression that is often chanted on the sidelines of Hong Kong football matches by its supporters, very proud of the city's identity and its Cantonese culture, as opposed to the rest of China which mainly speaks Mandarin.
This formula was particularly heard before football matches, at the time of the anthems, when that of China, which is also that of Hong Kong, resounded.
But local authorities passed a law in 2020 penalizing any contempt of the Chinese anthem or flag, specifically justifying it by the attitude of Hong Kong football fans.
Police confirmed on Friday that they were investigating whether spectators at the Olympics violated the law during the broadcast in the mall.
"The police have launched investigations into this incident and will gather the necessary clues," a spokesperson told AFP, without giving details.
Hong Kong was surrendered by London to Beijing in 1997 as part of an agreement that was supposed to guarantee the territory, for 50 years, freedoms unknown in the rest of China.
Thanks to this semi-autonomy, the city was for a long time as such a bastion of freedom of expression, as opposed to the rest of the country.
Faced with increasingly large interference from China, pro-democracy protests have multiplied in recent years, notably with the "Umbrella Movement" in 2014, and especially the months of mobilization in the streets in 2019.
Since then, China has launched a relentless crackdown, with hundreds of arrests, including last year by imposing a national security law which, in fact, criminalizes the expression of any form of opposition in Hong Kong. .
© 2021 AFP