No place for bad jokes in Hong Kong
Stephen Vines contrasts two free-speech cases here and in London
When is a joke not a joke? One possible answer is that a joke, albeit one in rather bad taste, may be a joke in Britain but an offence in Hong Kong. Both jurisdictions share a common legal system, but a case now awaiting a decision as to whether it can be heard in Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal seems to show that jokes are rather dangerous in these parts. This case raises challenging questions over freedom of speech and use of the internet.
Two years ago, in a case that received minimal media coverage, Chan Yau-hei, then an unemployed 23-year-old man, was put on probation for 12 months for using an internet forum to suggest that a more effective way of protesting against the central government's role in the constitutional reform row would be to cease demonstrations and "learn from the Jewish people and bomb the central government's liaison office".
Chan was presumably referring to the anti-British activities of the Irgun movement before the establishment of the State of Israel.
Meanwhile, in July, the High Court in London overturned a conviction against Paul Chambers. Chambers had sent a tweet expressing his frustration over the closure of the Robin Hood airport in South Yorkshire owing to snow on the runway. His girlfriend's flight had been delayed and he wrote that unless the airport authorities got their act together, he was planning to blow "the airport sky high".
Initially convicted of sending a public electronic message of a "clearly menacing" character, Chambers successfully appealed and there was celebration among civil liberties campaigners.
Both cases are remarkably similar. They relate to intemperate language and less than intelligent expressions of frustration but were not followed up by these men or anyone else. Both wrote their ill-advised comments as a joke and expected them to be regarded as such.
However, the similarity ends there because Chambers left the High Court without a black mark against his name. Moreover, the British media paid some attention to his case and its ramifications for freedom of speech.