Hong Kong opposition stages protest in assembly before mass resignation

Hong Kong's opposition staged a final show of defiance in the legislature on Thursday before resigning to protest against the dismissal of four of their colleagues.

The withdrawal of the opposition from the city legislature will mean an end for what has been one of the few forums for dissent after Beijing's imposition of national security legislation in June and coronavirus restrictions ended pro-democracy protests that began last year.

Hong Kong's Beijing-backed government expelled four opposition members from the legislature on Wednesday for endangering national security after China's parliament gave city authorities new powers to curb dissent.

The remaining 15 opposition members of the 70-seat Legislative Council, known as Legco, then said they would quit in solidarity with their colleagues.

"I suppose this is my last protest in Legco," opposition member Lam Cheuk-ting said after unfurling a protest banner vilifying the city's leader, Carrie Lam.

The opposition politician had briefly displayed the banner from the building's second floor, with the message: "Carrie Lam is corrupting Hong Kong and hurting its people; She will stink for 10,000 years."

The city's chief executive was not in the assembly at the time.

On Wednesday, Carrie Lam defended the expulsion of the four opposition members as being in accordance with the law and she dismissed suggestions the legislature would become a rubber stamp.

Opposition members have tried to make a stand against what many people in the former British colony see as Beijing's whittling away of freedoms, despite a promise of a high degree of autonomy under a "one country, two systems" formula, agreed when it returned to China in 1997.

China denies curbing rights and freedoms in the global financial hub but authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing have moved decisively to stifle dissent after anti-government protests flared last year and plunged the city into crisis.