One of the shrinking number of independent civil organizations in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Federation of Students, has decided that it can no longer continue.
It’s been around since 1958 and reportedly once took a pro-Beijing stance. Since at least the 1980s, though, it has been active in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movements. The Federation helped organize a vigil to commemorate the protesters struck down in Tiananmen Square in 1989. In 2014 it organized a campaign to call for universal suffrage.
Now, under “increasing pressure,” the Federation has decided to close its doors (Hong Kong Free Press, February 5, 2025).
Isaac Lai, chief representative of the HKFS, told HKFP over the phone on Thursday that the group held a standing committee meeting on Thursday morning to vote on initiating the dissolution process….
“As you could see, many college student unions in different universities disbanded recently. And we were facing the same pressure. And there is nothing we can do except to disband,” Lai said in Cantonese….
Before HKFS announced its disbandment, the Lingnan University Students’ Union (LUSU) was the group’s only active member. Lai is the vice-president of the LUSU.
Last June, Hong Kong police force arrested four former and current student union members at Lingnan University [including Isaac Lai] for allegedly stealing HK$1.3 million from their organisation’s funds for personal expenses.
The group has not been prosecuted so far. Lai said they regularly report to the police as part of bail conditions.
Reports on the impending dissolution don’t say whether Lai and the others contend that the charges against them are nothing more than one form of the pressure to which the Federation has been subjected. But that’s what it sounds like.
