- By Kathryn Armstrong
- BBC News
1 hour ago
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Civic Party leader Alan Leong said the group had found no one willing to take its leadership
One of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civic Party, has voted to disband after China cracked down on dissent.
Founded in 2006, it was once the second largest opposition party in the city’s Legislative Council.
However, several of its most important members have been arrested or fled into exile in recent years.
One of its founders said the party’s demise was “symbolic of the end of Hong Kong’s nativist democracy movement.”
Speaking to the AFP news agency, Albert Lai said: “The failure does not mean that the movement was meaningless.”
The party announced plans to disband in December after failing to form a new board.
At the time, Chairman Alan Leong told the Hong Kong Free Press he was not surprised that no one wanted to lead the party, as there had been no suggestions from an internal member in September on how to keep it going.
On Saturday, Mr Leong said all members voted to dissolve the party, with one person abstaining.
“After the Civic Party has gone through the final procedure, it will disappear from the face of the earth,” he said.
In a statement, Mr Leong thanked “all like-minded people” who had joined the party on its “long road to democracy” and said that while it “has not achieved what we set out to do, there is a time for everything”. . .
Known for representing professionals such as lawyers and accountants, the Civic Party was seen as a more moderate alternative to the larger Democratic Party, which is still running.
In 2020, following the introduction of the controversial national security law, four of its lawmakers were ousted from the Legislative Council for being “unpatriotic”.
This triggered mass resignations of other opposition politicians in protest.
The party lost dozens of seats on county councils after an overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system that meant that only “patriots” could hold public office.
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. Under the “one country, two systems” principle, residents should enjoy certain freedoms not available on the mainland – and Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, guarantees the right to public assembly.
But critics say those rights have been eroded since 2020, when Beijing enacted a national security law in response to widespread pro-democracy protests.
Beijing said the law was necessary to bring stability to the city – but critics believe it was designed to quell dissent and weaken Hong Kong’s autonomy.