Investigation into Upside Down Flag

This morning the Chinese flag was upside down at Legco

This week is not over yet, and so much has happened -- eight former lawmakers were arrested for illegal assembly on July 1, eight Chinese University students were arrested for chanting slogans for independence, activist Agnes Chow Ting denied bail, former Democratic Party lawmaker Ted Hui Chi-fung's bank account frozen, unfrozen then refrozen again, and on top of that the number of cases of the coronavirus climbed to 112 today.

We can also add from today restaurants cannot serve food inside the premises beyond 6pm, while gyms, beaches, libraries, museums, concert halls, massage parlours are closed too. Basically there is nothing to do in the city.

The blunder wasn't found until two hours later

So there was a bit of respite from the gloom to find out this morning that the Chinese flag was flying upside down at the Legislative Council for almost two hours until someone spotted the mistake.

Every morning at 8am the flag is raised outside the complex in Admiralty, but the Legco secretariat didn't discover the blunder until just before 10am.

By that time pictures of the upside down flag spread on social media.

"After learning that the national flag at Legco Square had been flying upside down, the secretariat immediately raised it properly at 9.54am. The secretariat sincerely apologizes for the mistake," it said.

It added an investigation was underway, and the office would follow up with its human resources policies.

"The secretariat has also immediately reviewed and improved the procedures of flag raising to avoid a recurrence of the mistake in future," it added.

Hong Kong's current flag law states that anyone who desecrates the national flag or national emblem by publicly and wilfully burning, mutilating, scrawling on, defiling or trampling it commits an offence punishable by a fine of up to HK$50,000 and three years in jail.

Last year this happened at the liaison office

However, in October, the National People's Congress Standing Committee, China's top legislative body, strengthened the national flag law to ban flying it upside down in an amendment to take effect January 1 and will apply in Hong Kong.

So whoever did it this time is very lucky to not be affected by the new amendment that will be in a few weeks' time.

Nevertheless it is quite strange for this to happen, considering at least three people are involved in the flag-raising ceremony... did no one check afterwards to see if it was flying the right way up?

Federation of Trade Unions lawmaker Wong Kwok-kin isn't too worried about it, saying last year a staff member at Beijing's liaison office made the same mistake, and if Thursday's incident was an oversight, then warning the staff should be enough.

But another pro-Beijing lawmaker, Edward Lau Kwok-fan of the DAB says further investigation is necessary.

"Flying the flag upside down is a serious matter. We have to see whether it's just a careless mistake or there are other reasons," he said.