Flag Desecration - Background

Background

Actions that may be treated as flag desecration include:

• Burning it
• Urinating or defecating on it
• Defacing it with slogans
• Daubing it with excrement, etc.
• Walking on it
• Spitting on it
• Stoning it
• Shooting it with guns
• Hurling insults at it
• Cutting or ripping it
• Dragging it through the dirt
• Using it unconventionally, e.g.:
  • Hanging it upside down or reversed. In some countries, however, this is also conventional protocol to indicate an emergency or problem.
  • Making toilet paper, napkins, doormats, and other such items bearing the image of the flag, so that the flag's image will be destroyed or soiled in the course of everyday activities.

It is increasingly common to see clothing with the image of the flags forming a substantial part of the piece. Views vary as to whether some of this is an act of national pride or disrespect.

Such actions may be undertaken for a variety of reasons:

• As a protest against a country's foreign policy.
• To distance oneself from the foreign or domestic policies of one's home country.
• As a protest at the very laws prohibiting the actions in question.
• As a protest against nationalism.
• As a protest against the government in power in the country, or against the country's form of government.
• A symbolic insult to the people of that country.

In common usage, the phrase 'flag burning' refers only to burning a flag as an act of protest. However the United States Flag Code states that "the flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning".

As described below burning or defacing a flag is a crime in some countries. In countries where it is not a crime the act may still be prosecuted as disorderly conduct, arson or theft if conducted against someone else's property.