Flag Desecration

The act of burning, defacing, trampling or otherwise physically mistreating a national flag as a form of political protest or expression, criminalized in a number of countries as an offense against the state or public order, while other countries, most notably the United States, have found such laws unconstitutional as applied to protest speech. The United States Supreme Court held in its 1989 decision in Texas v. Johnson that flag burning as a form of political protest is expression protected by the First Amendment, striking down state flag desecration laws, and reaffirmed the ruling the following year in United States v. Eichman after Congress attempted to circumvent it with a federal Flag Protection Act. By contrast, a number of other countries maintain a criminal flag desecration offense, and international sporting and diplomatic protocol separately treats flag mishandling, whether or not criminalized domestically, as a significant breach of etiquette capable of provoking a diplomatic incident.