No candidates from Hong Kong's main pro-democracy party will be allowed to contest upcoming local elections, the party said, after a new, Beijing-backed nomination process closed on Monday.
Pro-democracy parties won the last district council elections in 2019 in a landslide, with the polls held at the peak of massive and at times violent protests calling for greater political freedoms.
Since then, Beijing has moved to quell dissent in the city, imposing a national security law and overhauling the electoral process in a way that allows it to weed out those considered disloyal to the Chinese government.