Hong Kong bans mobile game about overthrowing communist regime
Hong Kong has invoked the national security law to ban a mobile game for allegedly advocating armed revolution and promoting secessionism in the Chinese city and self-governed Taiwan.
Hong Kong residents were unable to find Reversed Front: Bonfire, developed by ESC Taiwan, on Apple's app store on Wednesday after authorities warned against downloading the application.
Police claimed the app was released in April under the guise of a game with the aim of promoting secessionist agendas such as "Taiwan independence' and 'Hong Kong independence' and advocating armed revolution and the overthrow of the fundamental system of the People's Republic of China".
The app in its description says players can "pledge allegiance" to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Tibet, or Uyghurs, among other options, "to overthrow the Communist regime". They may also choose to lead the communists to defeat all enemies.
On the app's Facebook page, the developer posted about surging searches for the game name and a news report about Tuesday's development.
The game's website declares that it 'is a work of nonfiction'. 'Any similarity to actual agencies, policies or ethnic groups of the PRC in this game is intentional.'
Police said any person found to have downloaded the game "may be regarded as in possession of a publication that has a seditious intention".
The game publisher last month said Google Play had taken the app down because it did not prohibit users from adopting hateful language in naming.
Reversed Front is the first app to be banned in Hong Kong under the national security law in what appears to be a widening crackdown on dissent following the pro-democracy protests of 2019. The city authorities have silenced many dissenting voices through prosecutions under the 2020 national security law imposed by Beijing and a similar local law enacted last year.
China also faces allegations of eradicating any possibility of unrest in regions that are home to sizeable ethnic populations by imprisoning dissenters, reshaping societies and religions to align them with the views of the Communist Party. The approach has allegedly hardened in the past decade under the leadership of Xi Jinping, who has been accused of a brutal crackdown on the Uyghur community in the Xinjiang region.
After playing the game for about three months, Kuo Hao Fu in Taiwan said he found its content took a humorous approach to describe serious political issues. Mr Fu disagreed with the Hong Kong police's accusations, saying players could choose to be part of the force representing China.
'The Hong Kong police's actions demonstrate how Hong Kong's democratic freedoms have been controlled by the Chinese Communist Party,' he told the Associated Press. 'When even this level cannot be tolerated, it completely destroys creative freedom in gaming.'
Beijing has not ruled out the use of force to bring self-governed Taiwan under its control and routinely conducts military exercises circling the island.
Beijing and Hong Kong insist that the national security laws are necessary to return stability to the city following the 2019 protests.
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