One of Hong Kong’s last remaining opposition parties has officially disbanded, its leader announced Sunday, citing "immense political pressure" as Beijing presses on with its years-long crackdown on dissent.
The League of Social Democrats (LSD), founded in 2006, championed democratisation and grassroots issues in Hong Kong’s legislature and on the streets.
It is the latest opposition party to cease operating after Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020 to curb dissent and end democracy protests that had brought the financial hub to a standstill.
Photo: AFP
"In the face of immense political pressure and after careful deliberation -- particularly with regard to the consequences for our members and comrades -- we have made the difficult decision to disband," LSD said in a statement.
Party chair Chan Po-ying said at a press conference that the decision to disband had been unanimous.
Asked if the pressure had come from Beijing’s middlemen, Chan said she could not disclose details.
Photo: AP
LSD, which had called for direct elections for the city’s leader and legislature, won three seats in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council at the height of its popularity in 2008.
Its lawmakers were known for their colourful heckling and symbolic protests in legislative sessions, which included lobbing bananas and fish sandwiches at the city’s leadership.
- ’Domino effect’ -
Photo: AP
Fernando Cheung, spokesperson for Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas, said LSD’s dissolution "further reveals the near purging of Hong Kong’s pan-democratic political parties and civil society organisations".
After the imposition of the national security law and with most of the city’s democracy campaigners jailed or overseas, the Civic Party closed in 2023 and in February, the Democratic Party began winding down.
One of LSD’s founding members, "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung, remains behind bars after being found guilty of subversion last year, as part of Hong Kong’s largest national security trial.
Another LSD activist, Jimmy Sham, was also jailed in the same case. He was released from prison last month.
In recent years, LSD had limited its public activities to a Sunday street booth in a shopping district where a handful of activists handed out flyers while filmed by police.
Chan said that Hong Kong is witnessing a "domino effect" and that her group will not be the last to fold, urging people "on the one hand to survive, and on the other hand to try to exercise our rights as citizens".
The Philippines is working behind the scenes to enhance its defensive cooperation with Taiwan, the Washington Post said in a report published on Monday. “It would be hiding from the obvious to say that Taiwan’s security will not affect us,” Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilbert Teodoro Jr told the paper in an interview on Thursday last week. Although there has been no formal change to the Philippines’ diplomatic stance on recognizing Taiwan, Manila is increasingly concerned about Chinese encroachment in the South China Sea, the report said. The number of Chinese vessels in the seas around the Philippines, as well as Chinese
‘A SERIOUS THREAT’: Japan has expressed grave concern over the Strait’s security over the years, which demonstrated Tokyo’s firm support for peace in the area, an official said China’s military drills around Taiwan are “incompatible” with peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Takeshi Iwaya said during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi (王毅) on Thursday. “Peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is important for the international community, including Japan,” Iwaya told Wang during a meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN-related Foreign Ministers’ Meetings in Kuala Lumpur. “China’s large-scale military drills around Taiwan are incompatible with this,” a statement released by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday cited Iwaya as saying. The Foreign Ministers’ Meetings are a series of diplomatic
URBAN COMBAT: FIM-92 Stinger shoulder-fired missiles from the US made a rare public appearance during early-morning drills simulating an invasion of the Taipei MRT The ongoing Han Kuang military exercises entered their sixth day yesterday, simulating repelling enemy landings in Penghu County, setting up fortifications in Tainan, laying mines in waters in Kaohsiung and conducting urban combat drills in Taipei. At 5am in Penghu — part of the exercise’s first combat zone — participating units responded to a simulated rapid enemy landing on beaches, combining infantry as well as armored personnel. First Combat Zone Commander Chen Chun-yuan (陳俊源) led the combined armed troops utilizing a variety of weapons systems. Wang Keng-sheng (王鏗勝), the commander in charge of the Penghu Defense Command’s mechanized battalion, said he would give
‘REALISTIC’ APPROACH: The ministry said all the exercises were scenario-based and unscripted to better prepare personnel for real threats and unexpected developments The army’s 21st Artillery Command conducted a short-range air defense drill in Taoyuan yesterday as part of the Han Kuang exercises, using the indigenous Sky Sword II (陸射劍二) missile system for the first time in the exercises. The armed forces have been conducting a series of live-fire and defense drills across multiple regions, simulating responses to a full-scale assault by Chinese forces, the Ministry of National Defense said. The Sky Sword II missile system was rapidly deployed and combat-ready within 15 minutes to defend Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in a simulated attack, the ministry said. A three-person crew completed setup and
RSS