Demosisto

Demosistō (/ˌdɛməˈsɪstoʊ/) 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.