China | Closing time

Hong Kong’s last functioning pro-democracy party disbands

A long campaign against dissent crushes a final few democrats

Hong Kong's League of Social Democrats Party announces the formal dissolution of the party
Photograph: Getty Images
|HONG KONG|2 min read

TEARS ROLLED down Chan Po-ying’s face at the disbandment of the League of Social Democrats (LSD), the last functioning pro-democracy party in Hong Kong, on June 29th. Ms Chan, the party’s leader, spoke of the impossibility of operating amid “the omnipresence of red lines and the draconian suppression of dissent”.

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This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Closing time”

From the July 5th 2025 edition

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