The National Basketball Association’s showdown with China over free speech has created an unanticipated opening-week problem for the league: the arrival of Hong Kong protesters who plan to use the league’s arenas and broadcasts as a platform for their message.

Several NBA policies state that signs bearing political messages are not tolerated at games. Most arenas also have security regulations that clearly state that any such signs brought in my fans will be confiscated and that disruptive fan behavior is cause for ejection.

Those rules have not deterred activists in the wake of the league’s unexpected confrontation with China after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted support for anti-government protesters in Hong Kong. The league says it respects peaceful demonstrations and does not believe they will be a disruptive issue during NBA games this season, according to a person familiar with the matter.

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But protests have already occurred at several preseason games, and supporters of the democracy movement in Hong Kong have organized large-scale demonstrations for the opening-night games in Toronto and Los Angeles.

On Friday, over 150 protesters wearing black “Stand With Hong Kong” t-shirts came to the Barclays Center for the Brooklyn Nets final preseason game. The protesters’ seats were purchased by activist and film producer Andrew Duncan, who has advocated for human rights in China on several occasions. In 2015, Duncan’s efforts helped secure the release of the five Chinese women imprisoned for peacefully protesting sexual harassment on Beijing’s public transit system. In 2017, Duncan was accused of sexual harassment and has since faded from the public eye. Duncan did not respond to request for comment.


One of those in attendance on Friday was Nathan Law, a Hong Kong student leader and former lawmaker who was imprisoned for 2.5 months in 2017 for his role in 2014 protests. According to a statement Law made on Twitter, the protesters targeted the Nets game to “send a signal” to the team’s owner, Chinese billionaire and Alibaba co-founder Joseph Tsai, that “the way he followed the CCP’s stigmatization and criticized [Daryl] Morey was disgraceful.”

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After the free speech controversy exploded two weeks ago, Tsai posted an open letter on Facebook attempting to explain why speaking freely on “certain topics that are third-rail issues in certain countries” was problematic.

“Supporting a separatist movement in a Chinese territory is one of those third-rail issues, not only for the Chinese government, but also for all citizens in China,” he wrote.

Law said he and many of his peers found Tsai’s statement disappointing. “He’s trying to use a false information to accuse Morey for sticking up for Hong Kong and he is colluding with the Communist Party,” said Law of Tsai. “The protests are not a separatist movement like he phrased.”


The Nets declined to comment.

The planned protests in L.A. and Toronto next week came together spontaneously after posts by disgruntled democracy-in-Hong-Kong supporters went viral.

In Los Angeles, a Reddit user with the pseudonym Sun Lared posted, “Let’s pass out “Free Hong Kong” T-shirts at Staples Center on Opening Night, and make Chinese TV censor the whole audience,” on the Lakers’ Reddit on October 6, two days after Morey’s initial tweet. It didn’t take long for the thread to blow up. Lared created a GoFundMe page to support his cause that raked in $43,000 within 48 hours.

Lared, who told the website LAist that he is using a fake name to prevent himself and his family from being attacked by Chinese internet troll mobs, then set about printing 16,000 shirts with an umbrella above the words of Morey’s infamous tweet: “Fight for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong.” Lared told LAist he plans to fly from his home in the Bay Area to distribute the t-shirts outside of the Staples Center with the help of the “more than 100” Twitter users that direct messaged him to volunteer.


The grass-roots movement in Los Angeles inspired Mimi Lee, a financial adviser who runs the Torontonian HongKongers Action Group, to start a similar campaign in Canada. She set up a GoFundMe page on October 12 with the goal of raising $28,000 for 5,000 shirts emblazoned with “The North Stand With Hong Kong” that will be distributed outside Scotiabank Arena. By October 14, Thanksgiving Day in Canada, the fundraiser had pulled in $34,192, enabling the group to print an additional 2,000 shirts.

“Hopefully [fans] will wear the shirts in the game so that we show how all of us are standing with Hong Kong to say no to Chinese interference and endorsing freedom of speech and freedom of expression,” said Lee. “We’re hoping that one-third of the arena will be wearing these t-shirts.”

The protesters are gambling that the NBA will not attempt to thwart the T-shirt giveaways, which represent a clever way of getting around the league’s policy that bans political signage. Arena security can confiscate fans’ political posters, but not their clothes.

Lee believes that fans who choose to wear the shirts in the stands will not be apprehended. “If [the NBA] asks them to do it, that means they are not really standing by freedom of speech,” she said.

Smaller protests occurred at two earlier preseason games. During a game between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Guangzhou Long-Lions from the Chinese Basketball Association on October 8, two fans were ejected for shouting “Free Hong Kong” and carrying signs with the same message.


According to security staff from the Wells Fargo Center, the couple was warned three times before they were removed from the premises in accordance with “standard operating procedures.” A spokesman from the Philadelphia 76ers, who are tenants at the arena and do not manage security, said the team was not aware of the incident until after the game.

Protesters followed the Long-Lions as they traveled to the nation’s capital for a game against the Washington Wizards on October 9. Several groups, including one organized by democracy advocacy group Freedom House, attended the game or stood outside Capital One Arena wearing “Free Hong Kong” t-shirts and displaying political signs. Building security confiscated signs brought into the arena, including one that read “Google Uighurs,” but did not require protesters to cover or remove their shirts.

The Wizards explained in a statement that the signs were removed because they disrupted the view of other fans in attendance and were “political in nature,” thus violating the arena’s “long-standing Signs, Banners, Posters and Flag Policy.”

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Write to Laine Higgins at laine.higgins@wsj.com