HONG KONG — One of the few remaining pro-democracy events in Hong Kong voted to dissolve itself on Saturday, becoming a member of a rising listing of organizations which have disbanded as authorities crack down on dissent.

Civic Party chairman Alan Leong advised reporters that the dissolution of the social gathering was a “writing on the wall” as there was nobody to take over. None of its members at a rare basic assembly filed nominations for govt positions.

Thirty of the 31 members voted to disband, with one individual abstaining.

The social gathering, which was based in 2006, was made up of principally professionals, attorneys and teachers. At its peak, it gained six seats within the Hong Kong legislature throughout the 2012 elections, and was town’s second-largest pro-democracy social gathering after the Democratic Party.

Several members had been charged with subversion beneath the sweeping nationwide safety regulation that was imposed by Beijing following huge 2019 protests calling for political freedoms that had been promised the semi-autonomous territory after its handover from Britain in 1997.

They had been accused of collaborating in an unofficial main to select up the most effective candidates for the legislative elections that might enable the pro-democracy camp to win a majority of seats. Authorities, nevertheless, mentioned that the first was aimed toward subverting the federal government.

In a written assertion, Leong thanked “all like-minded people who joined our long walk to democracy for different parts of the journey.”

“Today, the Civic Party is bidding Hong Kong farewell,” he wrote. “We hope Hong Kong people will live in the moment with a hopeful and not too heavy heart. Live in truth and believe in tomorrow.”

Since the nationwide safety regulation was handed, town has undergone main modifications to its political panorama. An overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system was made to make sure that solely “patriots” loyal to China would be capable to take workplace, and greater than 200 folks have been arrested for allegedly committing acts that endanger nationwide safety.

Many pro-democracy political organizations in Hong Kong have already disbanded. They embrace the protest organizer Civil Human Rights Front and the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which was behind the annual Tiananmen Square vigil to mark the 1989 bloodbath in Beijing of pro-democracy activists by Chinese troopers. The vigil has been banned for the final three years.

The metropolis, which was a bastion of free speech and expression, has not seen a large-scale pro-democracy protest since 2020.

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