HONG KONG -- The organizer of Hong Kong's annual commemoration of the Tiananmen Square crackdown will disband, the group said Saturday, after being under intense pressure from authorities since Beijing imposed its harsh national security law on the city.
The disbandment of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China is another blow to the pro-democracy movement in the former British colony that was once considered a bastion of freedoms in greater China. These freedoms -- including the right to assembly and free speech -- were supposed to be guaranteed until June 2047 following the handover of sovereignty back to the mainland in 1997 based on the "one country, two systems" formula, stipulated in the U.N.-registered international treaty Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984.
