Democratically elected district councilors have backed down from the use of a pig cartoon popular with Hong Kong protesters to decorate local Chinese festivities, after the government threatened to withhold a tender exercise for the festival design.

The LIHKG Pig, a set of gif emoticons, is the lantern decoration of choice for the Yau Tsim Mong District Council to celebrate the Mid-autumn Festival, which falls on Oct. 1 this year. But the government’s Home Affairs Department says it is “disturbing” and breaches the use of public funds on commercial entities if employed.

Council members did not want the district to be empty of festival decorations and had thus given up the original design, said district council member Ben Lam, who had initiated the use of the LIHKG Pig in the local decorations.

The LIHKG Pig was created by the forum website LIHKG, one of the main communication channels used by demonstrators during anti-extradition bill protests begun in June 2019. The piggy icon became popular and has been widely depicted in protest art.

In response to the council’s initial design proposal, the department said the LIHKG Pig was “disturbing,” did not match the mood of the festival and could affect community harmony. Officials also said that the LIHKG Pig’s use in public decorations would violate a manual and guidelines on the use of district council funds as it would amount to promoting a commercial organization and might bring copyright issues.

Lam said the department had initially voiced reservations over the council organizers' decision to feature the LIHKG Pig, but did not officially issue a black-and-white ban until a few days ago.

Officers at the department had also mentioned that the LIHKG Pig was related to protests, he added.

The department’s decision was political censorship, he said, pointing out that the government did not have the power to decide if a graphic was “disturbing.” He proposed getting the Obscene Articles Tribunal to decide on the matter.

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