Demosistō

Demosisto (stylised Demosistō) was a pro-democracy political organisation established on 10 April 2016 as a political party. It was led by Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow – former leaders of Scholarism, along with Nathan Law, former secretary-general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS). Scholarism and the HKFS were the two student activist groups which played an instrumental role in the 79-day occupy protests known as the Umbrella Revolution in 2014. Demosistō advocated a referendum to determine Hong Kong's sovereignty with the goal of obtaining autonomy after 2047, when the one country, two systems principle as promised in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Hong Kong Basic Law is supposed to expire. It won a seat in the 2016 Legislative Council election with its 23-year-old chairman Nathan Law becoming the youngest candidate ever to be elected. In 2017, Law was disqualified from the Legislative Council over the oath-taking controversy and was imprisoned with Joshua Wong for the storming into the Civic Square during the Umbrella Revolution. After a series of disqualification of the Demosistō candidates, the party passed a resolution in January 2020 to abandon its advocacy for "democratic self-determination". After the passing of the Hong Kong national security law, the party's leadership resigned from their offices and the party disbanded on 30 June 2020. Beliefs The following are the major missions of Demosistō: Development of civil society: Demosistō wants to encourage the people of Hong Kong to discuss their political views and the youth to develop political parties and civic movements. Equality and justice, trust of people, pluralist: Demosistō believes in the Hong Kong people and their ability to shape Hong Kong into a pluralist city with the values of justice and equality. Fight for democratic legislation to inspire civic movements: Ivan Lam, who succeeded Nathan Law in May 2018 as a chairman, said the group will prepare to fight for democratic legislation in Hong Kong; for example, opposing Article 23 in the Basic Law (a controversial bill in Article 23 caused massive protests in 2003) and the proposed Anthem bill regarding the anthem of the People's Republic of China.