Internet Celebrity Detained For Disrespecting Chinese Anthem
By Matthew Bossons
Mocking the national anthem of any nation is in poor taste and one livestream celebrity in China has learnt the hard way that disrespecting the anthem of the PRC has serious consequences.
Yang Kaili has been given five days detention after singing a segment the ‘March of the Volunteers,’ China’s national anthem, in a disrespectful manner during a livesteam on October 7.
Yang’s controversial livesteam saw the 21-year-old flailing her arms around while “mockingly” singing the beginning of the anthem, according to China Daily. The performance was part of an introduction for an ‘online music festival,’ South China Morning Post reports.
The song was broadcast on a livesteaming website called Huya, which was listed on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year. Yang had two million followers on the platform, before being suspended in the aftermath of her performance. All her videos were also removed from Huya.
Image via @莉哥/Weibo
“The national anthem is solemn and sacred … Huya respects the anthem and firmly protects its dignity,” the company said in a statement, according to SCMP. The statement also noted that Yang’s actions displayed a lack of knowledge in regards to the country’s laws and her social accountability.
Another livestreaming platform, TikTok, also removed all Yang’s videos from their service. She has 44 million followers on the site, according to SCMP.
Yang herself apologized on Weibo, where she has 1.12 million followers, saying she is “Sorry to the Motherland, to the fans, to web users and to the platform,” according to SCMP. She also acknowledged that she sang the anthem in an flippant manner and pleaded for forgiveness for her “stupid mistake.”
Apparently, according to her Weibo apology, she intends to take some time off from livestreaming to think about her online behavior, watch patriotic films and engage in political and ideological education.
Yang is the latest person to violate a Chinese law passed in October of last year that aims to stop the deliberate mockery of the national anthem. Anyone deemed to have disrespectfully reproduced the ‘March of the Volunteers’ will be subject to a criminal investigation and up to 15 days in the slammer.
[Cover image via @莉哥/Weibo]
For more news, click 'Read more' (阅读原文) below.