Product Code Database
Flag desecration is the desecration of a flag, violation of flag protocol, or various acts that intentionally destroy, damage, or mutilate a flag in public. In the case of a national flag, such action is often intended to make a political point against a country or its policies. Some countries have laws against methods of destruction (such as burning in public) or forbidding particular uses (such as for commercial purposes); such laws may distinguish between the desecration of the country's own national flag and the desecration of flags of other countries. Some countries have also banned the desecration of all types of flags from inside the country to other country flags.
Flag desecration may be undertaken for a variety of reasons. It may be a protest against a country's foreign policy, including one's own, or the nature of the government in power there. It may be a protest against nationalism or a deliberate and symbolic insult to the people of the country represented by the flag. It may also be a protest at the very laws prohibiting the act of desecrating a flag.
| + List of countries' flag desecration permissibility and penalties |
| 5–10 years imprisonment |
| up to 1 year imprisonment |
| up to 6 months imprisonment |
| up to 1 year imprisonment |
| up to 1 month imprisonment up to fine |
| up to 2 years imprisonment and fine up to €1,600 (flag of Bulgaria and EU) |
| up to 1 year imprisonment |
| up to 3 years imprisonment |
| up to 1 year imprisonment |
| fine up to 30,000 Czech koruna |
| desecration of the Danish flag legal; a fine or up to 2 years imprisonment for desecrating a foreign (non-Danish) flag, but law unused since 1936 |
| up to 3 months imprisonment; from 5 to 20 fine |
| fine of up to 30,000 |
| up to 3 years imprisonment; up to fine |
| Fine of unspecified amount in legal code |
| up to 6 months imprisonment; up to fine |
| up to 3 years imprisonment |
| Greece |
| up to 1 year imprisonment |
| up to 4 months imprisonment up to fine |
| up to 10 years imprisonment; up to fine |
| unknown |
| up to 2 years imprisonment |
| up to 2 years imprisonment; €1,000–€10,000 fine |
| up to 2 years imprisonment or house arrest, or 900 hours community service; up to 3,000 MCI fine |
| 3–6 months imprisonment or up to 1 year house arrest; 50–100 monthly fine |
| up to 2 years imprisonment; variable fine |
| up to 6 years imprisonment; up to fine |
| 5–15 years imprisonment |
| 6 months to 4 years imprisonment |
| fine |
| A fine of and in the case of a continuing offence to a fine of for every day or part of a day during which the offence is continued after the day on which such person is first convicted. |
| varies |
| up to 1 year imprisonment; up to fine |
| up to 1 year imprisonment; variable fine |
| up to 3 years imprisoment |
| up to 4 years imprisonment |
| up to 6 months imprisonment |
| up to 1 year imprisonment; up to fine |
| up to 6 months imprisonment; up to fine |
| €420–€144,000 fine |
| rowspan="2" |
| up to 1 year imprisonment; up to fine |
| up to 6 years imprisonment; fine |
| up to 18 years imprisonment |
| up to 1 year imprisonment |
| rowspan="2" |
| United States |
| up to 360 hours community service or 3 years penal labour; up to 25 BCU fine |
In 2010, an Algerian court convicted 18 people of flag desecration and punished them by up to six years of imprisonment and $10,000 in fines after protests about jobs and housing.
In Coleman v Kinbacher & Anor (Qld Police),
"The objectionable feature of the conduct had very little to do with its political significance. It related to the lighting of a large piece of synthetic material to which petrol had been added in close proximity to larger numbers of people including young children. The circumstances were such as to arouse the apprehension of parents for the safety of their children." Coleman was successfully prosecuted for flag burning, not because of its political nature, but because given the size of the flag, the use of petrol as an accelerant, and the fact that it was in an open park area, many members of the public experienced "concern, fright and anger", and in these circumstances flag burning could be considered disorderly conduct.
In 2006, Australian contemporary artist Azlan McLennan burnt an Australian flag and displayed it on a billboard outside the Trocadero artspace in Footscray, Victoria. He called the artpiece Proudly UnAustralian.
The socialist youth group Resistance marketed "flag-burning kits"inspired by, and to protest, the censorship of Azlan McLennan's artto university students.
Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre worker Adam Thompson burned the Australian flag on the week of Australia Day (2008) celebrations in Launceston's City Park to the cheers of about 100 people, who were rallying against what they call "Invasion Day". PM called on to outlaw flag-burning, ABC News
Tent embassy activists burned the Australian flag on 27 January 2012 at the entrance to Canberra's Parliament House as they called for Aboriginal sovereignty over Australia. Tent Embassy protesters march on Parliament, ABC News
Article 30 states that, when in the flag is being marched or paraded (for example, when the national anthem is being played), everyone present must take a respectful attitude, standing in silence. Males must remove any head coverings. Military personnel must salute or present arms according to their corps' internal regulations.
Article 31 states that people are prohibited from:
Article 32 states that flags in a bad condition must be sent to the nearest military unit for incineration on Flag Day according to ceremonial procedures.
Article 33 states that, except at diplomatic missions such as embassies and consulates, no foreign flag may be flown without a Brazilian flag of the same size in a prominent position alongside it.
Chapter VI of the law states, in article 35, that the act of a civilian breaking this law is considered a misdemeanor, punished with a fine of one to four times the highest reference value active in the country, doubled in repeated infringement cases. In the Brazilian Armed Forces' Military Penal Code, article 161, a soldier, airman or seaman who disrespects any national symbol is punished with one to two years' detention; officers may be declared unsuitable for their rank. In other words, the desecration of a flag is illegal in Brazil, resulting in up to one month of imprisonment and a fine of up to ten reais as punishment.
In 1990, during heated political times around the Meech Lake Accord, the flag of Quebec was desecrated by protestors in Brockville, Ontario opposed to Quebec's language laws after the Canadian flag had been burnt in protests in Quebec. Televised images of individuals stepping on the Quebec flag were played in Quebec and contributed to the deterioration in relations between Quebec and English Canada. The incident, seen as a metaphor of Canada's perceived rejection of Quebec (and of Quebec's distinctiveness in the demise of the Meech Lake Accord) was invoked by Quebec nationalists during the run-up to the 1995 referendum on Quebec independence and is still remembered today.
In 1999, members of the Westboro Baptist Church from the United States staged a burning of the Canadian Flag outside of the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. This was to protest legalization of same-sex marriage which was being adjudicated by the Canadian court.
In 1999, two individuals were convicted for desecration of the Regional Flag of Hong Kong and the Chinese flag. They were found guilty by a magistrate, had the conviction overturned in the High Court but the convictions were restored by the Court of Final Appeal. They were bound over to keep the peace on their own recognisance of $2,000 for 12 months for each of the two charges. In the judgement, Chief Justice Andrew Li said although the Basic Law of Hong Kong guarantees freedom of speech, flag desecration is not legal because there are other protest methods.
Social activist Koo Sze-yiu has been convicted several times of flag desecration. He was sentenced to a nine-month prison term in 2013 for the offence. However, the sentence was reduced to four months and two weeks after an appeal. In March 2016, he was sentenced to a six-week prison term for burning the regional flag in Wanchai on HKSAR Establishment Day in 2015. Koo responded that "he is happy to be punished as being jailed is part of the life of an activist, and he would continue to protest against the Beijing and Hong Kong governments and fight for democracy." In January 2021, Koo was again jailed, this time for four months, for displaying an inverted Chinese flag with slogans written on it in July 2020.
In October 2016, some miniature Chinese and Hong Kong flags that had been placed by pro-Beijing legislators in the Legislative Council chamber were flipped upside down by lawmaker Cheng Chung-tai, who regarded them as "cheap patriotic acts". In April 2017 he was charged with flag desecration. He alleged that the arrest was part of a "general cleansing" of dissenting voices ahead of Carrie Lam's inauguration as new chief executive. On 29 September 2017, the Eastern Magistrates' Court found Cheng guilty and fined him $5,000.
In December 2019, a 13-year-old girl was sentenced to 12 months probation for flag desecration during the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests. She received a curfew as well as a criminal record; the act was described as "rash" by magistrate Kelly Shui. Government intervention was on the basis of "(Maliciously) challenging the national sovereignty".
This clause was added as an amendment to a large bill dealing with internal security, in reaction to a football match during which there had been whistles against La Marseillaise, but also to similar actions during public ceremonies. Proceedings of the French national assembly, second sitting of 23 January 2003 The amendment initially prohibited such behaviour regardless of the context, but a parliamentary commission later restricted its scope to events organized or regulated by public authorities, which is to be understood, according to the ruling of the Constitutional Council, as events organized by public authorities, mass sport matches and other mass events taking place in enclosures, but not private speech, literary or artistic works, or speech during events not organized or regulated by public authorities.The Constitutional Council considered that the events regulated by public authorities consist in public events of a sportive, recreative or cultural character organized in enclosures that law and regulations submit to health and safety rules because of their size. See Decision 2003-467 DC , section 104.
In 2006, a man who had publicly burnt a French flag stolen from the façade of the city hall of Aurillac during a public festival, organized and regulated by public authorities, was fined €300.
A July 2010 law makes it a crime to desecrate the French national flag in a public place, but also to distribute images of a flag desecration, even when done in a private setting, if the objective is to create trouble in public space. On 22 December 2010, an Algerian national was the first person to be convicted under the new status, and ordered to pay a €750 after breaking the pole of a flag hung in the Alpes-Maritimes prefecture a day prior. Un Algérien condamné pour outrage au drapeau français, Le Monde, 12 December 2010
The original law from 1932 was expanded in 1935 to include the flag of Nazi Germany.
As of 2020, it also results in up to three years of imprisonment as punishment for damaging or reviling the flag of any foreign country (§104 StGB). Until then, only flags that were shown publicly by tradition, event, or routinely by representatives of an official foreign entity were protected. The legislative reform to include also unofficially or privately used flags was an explicit reaction to the repeated burning of Israeli flags during anti-Israeli protests.
As part of that reform, a newly formed §90c StGB was introduced that extends the scope of protection to the flag and anthem of the European Union.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, some East Germany cut out the emblem from their national flag in support for a reunified, democratic Germany. This flag is now used by the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship. Information pamphlet by the Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship. Retrieved on 9 March 2008.
During a demonstration at the beginning of the Hungarian revolution of 1956 someone in the crowd cut out the communist coat of arms from the Hungarian flag, leaving a distinctive hole, and others quickly followed suit. The "flag with a hole" became a symbol of the Hungarian resistance. The practice of cutting out the communist coat of arms was also followed by other Eastern Bloc countries, such as Romania, especially during the Revolutions of 1989.
Violation of the code may invite severe punishments and penalties. The code was written in 2002 and merged the following acts: provisions of the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950 (No.12 of 1950) and the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 (No. 69 of 1971).
The Indian Flag Code was often criticized for being too rigid and prevented ordinary citizens from displaying the flag on homes and other buildings. For many years, only government officials and other government buildings could unfurl the flag. That changed in 2001 when Naveen Jindal won a court case in the Supreme Court of India to give Indians the right to unfurl the flag publicly. The Indian cricket batsman Sachin Tendulkar was accused of sporting the flag on his cricket helmet below the BCCI emblem. He later changed it and placed the flag above the emblem. The flag code was updated in 2005; some new provisions include that the flag cannot be worn under the waist or on undergarments.
Article 66 and 67 of Law No. 24/2009 states that anyone who commits any of these prohibited acts may face up to ten years of imprisonment as punishment or a fine of up to a billion rupiah.
Seán O'Casey's 1926 play The Plough and the Stars attracted controversy for its critical view of the Easter Rising, in particular a scene in which a tricolour is brought into a pub frequented by a prostitute. On 7 May 1945, the day before V-E Day, celebrating unionist students in Trinity College Dublin raised the flags of the victorious Allies over the college; when onlookers in College Green began jeering, some took down the flag of neutral Ireland, set fire to it and tossed it away, provoking a small riot. (2004). 9781871408263, Trinity College Dublin Press, in association with Environmental Publications. ISBN 9781871408263 In response, nationalist students from University College Dublin, including future Taoiseach Charles Haughey, burned the Union Flag in Grafton Street. The Provost of Trinity College apologised for the incident, which was not reported in Irish newspapers owing to wartime censorship.
In 2022, Israel passed a new amendment, meaning those convicted of deliberately burning an Israeli flag face up to two years in prison. the law itself on nevo(in hebrew) written in 1949 last updated in 2016
A German advert depicted the flag being torched in a coffee shop.
In May 1958, the flag of the People's Republic of China, the Wǔ Xīng Hóngqí, at a postage stamp convention was pulled down and damaged, but as Japan did not recognize the PRC at the time, the law was not applied. In February 2011, uyoku dantai held a protest over the Kuril Islands dispute outside of the Russian embassy in Tokyo, during which they dragged a Russian flag on the ground; Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov stated that his ministry had asked the Japanese government to launch a criminal case over the incident.
However, the desecration of the Japanese flag, the Hinomaru, has never been a crime. Absent from such law, the act of desecration is implicitly protected by Article 21 covering freedom of speech in the Constitution of Japan.
On 26 October 1987, an Okinawan supermarket owner burned the Hinomaru, before the start of the National Sports Festival of Japan. The flag burner, Shōichi Chibana, burned the national flag not only to show opposition to atrocities committed by the wartime Japanese army and the continued Japanese-requested presence of U.S. forces, but also to prevent it from being displayed in public. Other incidents in Okinawa included the flag being torn down during school ceremonies and students refusing to honor the flag as it was being raised to the sounds of "Kimigayo".
In late January 2021, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party announced its intention to pass a law in the Diet to prohibit the desecration of the Hinomaru.
On April 13, 2022, Japan made the desecration of foreign flags legal.
Nine Australian men, the 'Budgie Nine', were arrested after celebrating the 2016 Malaysian Grand Prix by stripping to their 'budgie smuggler' swimming trunks, decorated with the Malaysian flag. After three days in custody they were charged with public nuisance and released. The briefs had been made in Australia, not Malaysia.
In 2013, a group of Chinese Malaysian students in Taiwan, were photographed with an upside-down national flag, and claimed the action was "to express their dissatisfaction of the just-concluded general election that they alleged was carried out in an undemocratic way". In another incident, a Chinese Malaysian businessman Lee Kim Yew was reported to have dishonoring the national flag by changing its white stripes to black in an online post. The image, which has since been removed, was uploaded along with a post by Lee highlighting his recent blog entry on the inclusion of Jawi script lessons in Malaysian Malay-language textbooks for Year 4 students. His action drew widespread online criticism and Lee's Facebook account appeared to have been deactivated later on.
In 2007, activist Valerie Morse had burned the New Zealand flag during an ANZAC Day dawn service in Wellington. She was fined NZ$500 by the Wellington District Court and her conviction was upheld by the High Court and the Court of Appeal. After Morse's lawyers appealed the conviction on the grounds that she was being punished for expressing ideas, the New Zealand Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that the previous rulings had misinterpreted the meaning of "offensive behavior" in the Summary Offences Act.
It is questionable if these laws are enforced as there have been many instances where the national and foreign flags were set on fire.
Comedian Otto Jespersen burned a U.S. flag during a satirical TV show in 2003. During the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Norwegian flags were burned in demonstrations in various Muslim countries.
Section 50 meanwhile declares, "Any person or judicial entity which violates any of the provisions of this Act shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not less than five thousand Philippine peso (₱5,000.00) not more than twenty thousand pesos (₱20,000.00), or by imprisonment for not more than one (1) year, or both such fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court: Provided, That for any second and additional offenses, both fine and imprisonment shall always be imposed: Provided, That in case the violation is committed by a juridical person, its President or Chief Executive Officer thereof shall be liable."
Flag burning is only permitted, in the case of proper disposal of the flag.
A crucial point of etiquette for the Philippine flag is that flying it upside-down (i.e., red field over blue), or vertically hanging it with the red to the viewer's left, makes it the national War flag. Outside of an official state of war, Filipinos consider this a major faux-pas or a highly offensive act: several instances of this incorrect display (usually by foreigners) have attracted online backlash, prompting official apologies.
Article 137. § 1. "Whoever publicly insults, destroys, damages or removes an emblem, banner, standard, flag, ensign or other symbol of the State shall be subject to a fine, the penalty of restriction of liberty or the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to one year." § 2. "The same punishment shall be imposed on anyone, who on the territory of the Republic of Poland publicly insults, destroys, damages or removes an emblem, banner, standard, flag, ensign or other symbol of another State, publicly displayed by a mission of this State or upon an order of a Polish authority." Article 138. § 1. "The provisions of Articles 136 and 137 § 2 shall apply, when the foreign country ensures reciprocity."
The Portuguese Penal Code (article 323) also forbids the desecration of foreign symbols: "Who publicly, by means of words, gestures or print publication, or by other means of public communication, insults the official flag or other symbol of sovereignty of a foreign State or of an international organization of which Portugal is a member shall be punished with up to one year imprisonment or a fine of up to 120 days." This article applies under two conditions (article 324): that Portugal maintains diplomatic relations with the insulted country, and that there is reciprocity (i.e., that the insulted country would also punish any insult against Portuguese symbols of sovereignty, should they occur there).
During the Romanian Revolution of 1989, the Communist era flag was flown with the coat of arms cut out, leaving a hole.
In 2013, the U.S. rock band Bloodhound Gang desecrated a Russian flag during a concert in Ukraine. In response, Vladimir Markin of the Investigative Committee of Russia said that his department was prepared to file criminal charges if prosecutors thought they had a case.
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Because of the shahada, even flying this flag at half-mast is considered desecration in Saudi Arabia. This also applies to the flags of Afghanistan and Somaliland which also bear the shahada, and Iraq's which bears the takbir.
In post-apartheid South Africa there is no law against flag desecration yet. The current South African flag designed and adopted in 1994 has been the subject of desecration. In early 1994, white supremacists from the "Afrikaner Volksfront" organization burned the new South African flag in Bloemfontein in protest against the country's pending democratization.
In 1997 a teenager who identified as a skinhead was fined 500Swedish krona for waving a large, modified Swedish flag from the top of a hill during an event celebrating Sweden's National Day. The motifs that had been added to the flag in question were those of a sun wheel, an axe, a viking warrior's head in profile and the word "Valhalla". The royal family being present, the event being part of the city of Lycksele's 50 year jubilee, and the act of standing on the hill to increase the number of people who could see the flag, were all seen as contributing factors in the sentence.
The designers are immune from prosecution as the shoes were made and displayed outside Thailand. Were the offence committed in Thailand, those responsible could face a 2,000 baht fine or a year in jail.
A spokesman at the Thai National Flag Museum commented that no one has a copyright on the flag's colours or the order in which they are presented.
In May 1998, in a protest by 2,000 former prisoners of war, a Burma Railway veteran torched the Rising Sun banner before both Emperor Akihito and Elizabeth II. Police were persuaded by the crowd not to arrest him. A year later, two "committed socialists" threw a burning British flag in the direction of the Queen's motor vehicle. They were arrested for a breach of the peace offence, subsequently pleaded guilty and were fined a total of £450.Evening News Edinburgh Burning flag socialists fined GBP 450 13 October 1999 In 2001 at RAF Feltwell, home of United States Air Force's 5th Space Surveillance Squadron, a protester desecrated a U.S. flag with the words "Stop Star Wars" before stepping in front of a vehicle and stomping on the flag. Her conviction under S5 Public Order Act 1986 was overturned as incompatible with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In 2011, a group of approximately 20–30 students at King's College, Cambridge influenced the burning of a large British flag, the centerpiece of the Student Union's decorations to celebrate the royal wedding. King's College Student Union condemned the action as a "needlessly divisive and violent way to make a political point... the Union flag is a symbol and therefore can mean different things to different people in different contexts."
The Union Flag has also been burned by Argentine nationalists protesting British sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.
In 2006, to allow greater police control over extremist protesters, 17 MPs signed a House of Commons motion calling for burning of the British flag to be made a criminal offence.
Also in Northern Ireland, Ulster loyalists have sometimes mistakenly desecrated the Ivorian flag, erroneously mistaking it for the Irish one as the two are somewhat similar in appearance. In some cases, Ivorian flags displayed in Northern Ireland have signs explicitly labeling them as such displayed nearby to avoid having them desecrated by Ulster loyalists mistaking them for Irish ones.
In the American Civil War, the U.S. flag was flown by the Union against the Confederacy. Union Army general Benjamin Franklin Butler ordered the 1862 execution for treason of William B. Mumford, who had removed a Union flag in occupied New Orleans. An apocryphal tale of Barbara Fritchie preventing Confederate soldiers dishonoring her Union flag was propagated by John Greenleaf Whittier's 1863 poem "", which contains the famous lines:
"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag," she said.
During the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War, American flags were sometimes burned during war protest demonstrations.
After the Johnson decision, the Flag Protection Act was passed, protecting flags from anyone who "mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any flag". This law was later struck down in the Eichman decision. After that case, several flag burning amendments to the Constitution were proposed. On June 22, 2005, a Flag Desecration Amendment was passed by the House with the needed two-thirds majority. On June 27, 2006, another attempt to pass a ban on flag burning was rejected by the Senate in a close vote of 66 in favor and 34 opposed, one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to send the amendment to be voted on by the states.
There have been several proposed Flag Desecration Amendments to the Constitution of the United States that would allow Congress to enact laws to prohibit flag desecration:
During a rally in June 2020, president Donald Trump told supporters that he believed flag burning should be punishable by one year in prison.
Of the states which continue to have laws against flag burning, in spite of them being ruled unconstitutional, five afford this protection to the Virginian battle flag as well: Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
Article 139 (Disrespect of foreign emblems) Whoever, in the territory of the State, disrespects, in a public place or in a place open or exposed to the public, the flag or any other emblem of a foreign State, shall be punished with six months of imprisonment to three years of penitentiary.There is no restriction in place for the desecration of the Uruguayan national flag.
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