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HONG KONG – The Hong Kong government on Monday used a colonial-era public security order to ban a small pro-independence political party, according to a measure that would threaten freedom of expression and association in the city.
The Hong Kong National Party has only a few members and no elected representatives, but its call to make Hong Kong, a former British colony that joined China in 1997, a thorough review has been the subject of scrutiny.
The decision to ban the party was announced in a notice published in the official newspaper of Hong Kong. Security Secretary John Lee said in July that the authorities were planning to ban the group and sought his response.
Two years ago, party leader Andy Chan was barred from running for office in Hong Kong after he refused to answer questions from an election official about his desire to assert independence.
Chan speaks at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong in August Efforts to ban his party were a sign of deteriorating freedoms in the city. The Chinese Foreign Ministry and local officials have criticized the club for hosting a speaker who advocates separatism, and a former Hong Kong leader said the government should reconsider renting the group's clubhouse in a historic building owned by the government. the state.
Mr. Chan and the Hong Kong National Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The law under which the party was banned, the corporate ordinance, has not been used against a political party since Hong Kong's return to China's control in 1997. During the colonial era, political parties such as the Chinese Communist Party and the former ruling Kuomintang were banned in Hong Kong.
Although now part of China, Hong Kong has stronger protections for civil liberties, under the name of "one country, two systems".
The Companies Ordinance, which authorizes the banning of groups for reasons of national security, public security and public order, has been widely used against organized crime.
While the Hong Kong National Party is a tiny organization, the government's efforts to ban it have been challenged by a large number of pro-democracy figures who have said that this decision would lead to further restrictions on political freedoms.
Opinion polls indicate that most Hong Kong people do not support the city's independence from China. But the idea was widely debated, especially after the 2014 Umbrella movement, when protesters occupied the streets of the city for 79 days to demand more open elections.
The government in Beijing and officials in Hong Kong have condemned these calls. Some pro-government and mainland legislators have said that the secession speech shows that Hong Kong must pass comprehensive national security legislation that would ban treason, secession, subversion and other similar acts. .
This law, known as Article 23, was last proposed by the Hong Kong government in 2003, but was dropped after huge protests. Carrie Lam, the director general of Hong Kong, said the time has not come to pursue such legislation.
