Hong Kong: “Our resistance will continue” despite the invalidation of the candidatures

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The pro-democracy movement will continue to fight in Hong Kong against the repression carried out by the central Chinese power, Joshua Wong said Friday the day after the invalidation of 12 parliamentary candidacies, including his own.

“Our resistance will continue and we hope that the world will stand by our side in the battles to come,” the man who had been the face of the “Umbrella Movement” in 2014 told a press conference.

Dressed in a black t-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “They can’t kill us all,” the 23-year-old activist lambasted the decision to invalidate the September legislative candidacies of several of the most prominent opponents.

“This is undoubtedly the most scandalous period of electoral fraud in Hong Kong’s history,” said the man whom the authorities had already prevented from running in the local elections in November, in which the pro-democracy camp had triumphed .

The invalidation of these candidacies is one more illustration of the muscular recovery in hand operated by the Chinese central power in the former British colony, yet supposed to enjoy a wide autonomy until 2047 under the principle “One country , two systems ”.

In response to months of protests in 2019, which had been unprecedented since the handover in 1997, Beijing imposed a controversial national security law on Hong Kong at the end of June, denounced by the pro-democracy camp as a legal instrument to quell dissent.

On Thursday, the authorities informed 12 pro-democracy candidates that they did not have the right to stand for the legislative elections in September, citing various reasons, including their past positions.

The pro-democracy camp hoped to capitalize on the popularity of last year’s protest, and its success in local polls in November, to gain for the first time a majority in the Legislative Council (LegCo, the city’s parliament), which is composed in such a way that it normally almost automatically leans towards the Pro-Peking.

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