Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers resign en masse after Beijing rules to quash dissent

The ruling means that Beijing has effectively closed off one of the few remaining avenues open to Hong Kong residents to voice political dissent, following the imposition of a sweeping national security law in June criminalizing subversion.

The government clampdown comes in response to months of pro-democracy protests, which at their height last summer attracted more than 1 million people, and plunged the city into political crisis.

In a show of solidarity on Monday, the city’s 15 remaining pro-democracy lawmakers announced they would step down en masse, saying that the “One Country Two Systems” framework that had meant to provide Hong Kong with greater autonomy from the mainland is now officially dead.

At a press conference announcing the mass resignation on Wednesday, Dennis Kwok, one of the four disqualified lawmakers, said that Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam had “sought to turn the Legislative Council into a one party system.”

“It is ridiculous that the government has completely given up the Basic Law and ‘One Country Two Systems’,” he said. “The Legislative Council has the responsibility to check the government.”

Kwok said that the pan democratic lawmakers “will stand together with our disqualified colleagues and we will today all resign together.” The group said they would hand in their resignations in the legislative chamber together on Thursday.

Before their announcement, pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo told CNN that the authorities “have practically put the nail into Hong Kong’s democracy fight. “

“From now on, anyone deemed to be politically incorrect will not be allowed to run in the election,” she said. “They are making sure only patriots can join Hong Kong’s political election.”

China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) passed the resolution following a meeting in Beijing on Monday. The move is a latest in a months long clampdown on opposition and pro-democracy voices in the city, following last year’s anti-government protest movement.

Lam, Hong Kong’s leader, said in a press conference Wednesday that those who do not respect China’s sovereignty “cannot genuinely perform their duties as legislators.”

“I welcome diverse opinion in the Legislative Council and respect the checks and balances,” Lam said, adding that, “all of those responsibilities must be exercised responsibly.”

Though a part of China, Hong Kong has its own legal and political system, with limited democracy and greater personal freedoms than on the mainland.

RTHK previously reported that Beijing was seeking to unseat the now disqualified lawmakers for violating Hong Kong’s Basic Law by filibustering meetings. Emily Lau, former chair for the Democratic Party, said that she believed the Hong Kong government and the ruling Communist Party in Beijing had become frustrated with these tactics.

“It is absolutely devastating,” said Lau, a former Legislative Council member, of the new resolution. “We have procedures in the Basic Law if you want to kick out a legislator but they have just ignored all that … there’s no rule of law. It’s sending a very bad signal to Hong Kong and the world.”

Lau said that the broad definition of new ruling means it could be applied to “almost half of the population” and that the only people who could now run for government would be those who would “kowtow to Beijing.”

They included prominent Hong Kong activist and former leader of the 2014 Umbrella Movement Joshua Wong, and a number of candidates from more traditional pro-democracy parties, as well as several young activists who cut their political teeth in last year’s pro-democracy protest movement.

Critics now fear that with Beijing’s ruling and the expulsion of democracy lawmakers, Hong Kong’s parliament may just become a rubber stamp body for pro-Beijing policies.