Hong Kong pro-independence candidate disqualified from upcoming elections.

After a century and a half under British colonial rule, Hong Kong was restored to China in 1997. China agreed not to alter Hong Kong’s internationalized way of life—including freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and other political rights not permitted on the mainland—for half a century.

But, after nearly two decades, things are turning out differently. The Beijing government has rejected demands for free, open elections for Hong Kong’s next chief executive, in 2017, enraging protesters who had called for broad rights to nominate candidates.

China’s National People’s Congress announced a plan by which nominees must be vetted and approved by more than fifty per cent of a committee that is likely to be stacked with those who heed Beijing’s wishes. Recently a top leadership candidate in Hong Kong has been banned from running in the upcoming elections. Chan Ho-tin of the Hong Kong Nationalist Party who was seeking to run in the September elections, was banned by the Chinese controlled Electoral Affairs Commission. The Hong Kong National Party responded with a statement saying it is "truly proud" to be the "first party to be barred from a democratic election by the Communist colonial government of Hong Kong." and urged all other pro-democracy parties to boycott the coming elections. Since 2014 the HK government, under pressure from China, has been cracking down on democracy and pro independence activists in Hong Kong, seeking to remove them from the public and the political spheres.