Defiant Hong Kong soccer fans boo China anthem at match
Hong Kong soccer fans loudly booed China’s national anthem at a match Thursday in the Chinese-controlled city, defying Beijing days after Communist leaders tightened penalties for disrespecting the song.
Fans dressed in red in one section of the stadium jeered as the anthem, “March of the Volunteers,” was played at the start of a friendly game against Bahrain. Some waved banners reading “Fight for Hong Kong” and “Power for Hong Kong” while security personnel sought to prevent onlookers and some reporters from taking photographs of the banners and fans.
“It is absurd the way we are told what to do,” said Ming Cheung, a soccer fan who wore a red T-shirt. “If the government puts down a law dictating how people behave, it means they don’t have other means of making people love them.”
The long-simmering anthem controversy highlights increasingly tense relations between mainland China and the semiautonomous former British colony, where pro-democracy activists say Beijing is tightening its grip.