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Society for Truth and Light

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81-510: The Society For Truth And Light ( STL , Chinese : 明光社 ) is a pressure group with an official mission of "address[ing] social ethics, media behaviour, and sex culture in Hong Kong" from a Christian Right point of view "to care the society and service people through research, monitoring, education and publishing." However, it has been widely criticised due to its conservative stances on social issues which also criticize by some Christians. In

162-584: A retronym applied to non-simplified character sets in the wake of widespread use of simplified characters. Traditional characters are commonly used in Taiwan , Hong Kong , and Macau , as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia. As for non-Chinese languages written using Chinese characters, Japanese kanji include many simplified characters known as shinjitai standardized after World War II, sometimes distinct from their simplified Chinese counterparts . Korean hanja , still used to

243-469: A Hong Kong classic movie, has been repeatedly broadcast at full length on local television. In 2007, when it was again broadcast on TVB Jade Channel, a Christian lodged a complaint to the Broadcasting Authority about the "vulgar language" in the movie. He argued that the movie was broadcast at a time when parents will not be home to provide parental guidance. The BA accepted his view and classified

324-503: A certain extent in South Korea , remain virtually identical to traditional characters, with variations between the two forms largely stylistic. There has historically been a debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters . Because the simplifications are fairly systematic, it is possible to convert computer-encoded characters between the two sets, with the main issue being ambiguities in simplified representations resulting from

405-647: A charity that raises fund through charity channels, the group received funding from government departments such as the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA) of the Government of Hong Kong SAR through normal project bidding. In a media report by the Next Magazine in June 2007, the reporter claimed that the founder and chief executive of the group, Choi Chi-Sum, admitted that TELA has channelled public funding to

486-561: A designer furniture chain retailer, was raided by Hong Kong Police on 1 November 2007 for suspicion of selling triad -related T-shirts. The T-shirts bear the Traditional Chinese character "fourteen" (Chinese: 拾肆, Roman numeric: 14) and the English alphabet "K" (together, literally 14 000), which was a parody to a local triad bearing a similar name but in Roman numeric characters. As stated by

567-641: A district magnitude of 2 ("binomial system"). The binomial system was instituted by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in its amendment to Annex 2 of the Basic Law on 30 March 2021. Geographical constituencies were first introduced in Hong Kong's first legislative election with direct elections in 1991 . The electoral system and boundaries of GCs have since changed: ( Largest remainder method : Hare quota ) Between 1998 and 2016,

648-582: A heated debate between the group and its opponents, the group was mocked as being "moral terrorists" attempting to " Talibanize " the community. The Society For Truth and Light was established in May 1997, led by Choi Chi-sum . The group positions itself as "conservative" and defines itself as the vanguard of upholding traditional values against the "trends of radical libertarianism, feminism and extreme individualism" in modern society. The society has opined on social problems concerning sex in recent years. For instance, it

729-534: A member is constitutionally four years except for the first term (1998 to 2000) which was set to be two years according to Article 69 of the Basic Law . The 6th Legislative Council 's term of office of over five years from 2016 is in direct violation of Article 69 of the Basic Law. In both the 2008 and 2004 elections, 30 members were directly elected by universal suffrage from geographical constituencies (GCs) and 30 were elected from functional constituencies (FCs). In

810-437: A report on the difficulties faced by gay couples as well as the issue of same-sex marriage in Hong Kong. The Broadcasting Authority ruled in favour of the complaint and published an admonition criticising RTHK for broadcasting content relating to homosexuality during family viewing hours. In response to the decision, 160 counter-complaints have been filed by people who regard the judgment as unfair. The Legislative Council , in

891-467: A victim of so-called " reverse discrimination " in the gay rights issue. The concept of "reverse discrimination", in the group's context, means their right to discriminate against minority groups are being eroded (and hence "being discriminated"). In October 2005, the society won a contract to produce teaching materials for human rights education in schools. It was awarded by the Education Bureau (then

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972-798: Is 産 (also the accepted form in Japan and Korea), while in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan the accepted form is 產 (also the accepted form in Vietnamese chữ Nôm ). The PRC tends to print material intended for people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and overseas Chinese in traditional characters. For example, versions of the People's Daily are printed in traditional characters, and both People's Daily and Xinhua have traditional character versions of their website available, using Big5 encoding. Mainland companies selling products in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use traditional characters in order to communicate with consumers;

1053-561: Is the unicameral legislature of Hong Kong . It sits under China's " one country, two systems " constitutional arrangement, and is the power centre of Hong Kong's hybrid representative democracy , though popular representation in the legislature has diminished significantly in recent years, along with its political diversity. The functions of the Legislative Council are to enact, amend or repeal laws; examine and approve budgets, taxation and public expenditure; and raise questions on

1134-483: The Chinese Commercial News , World News , and United Daily News all use traditional characters, as do some Hong Kong–based magazines such as Yazhou Zhoukan . The Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified characters. DVDs are usually subtitled using traditional characters, influenced by media from Taiwan as well as by the two countries sharing the same DVD region , 3. With most having immigrated to

1215-893: The 1995 elected colonial legislature , the government of China, through the Preparatory Committee for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), unilaterally established, in 1996, the Provisional Legislative Council (PLC) in Shenzhen, under the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China . The Provisional Legislative Council, seen as unconstitutional by the British authorities and boycotted by most pro-democracy legislators ,

1296-503: The Basic Law of Hong Kong . Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to write Chinese languages . In Taiwan , the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education and standardized in the Standard Form of National Characters . These forms were predominant in written Chinese until

1377-715: The Civic Party . In the 2004 election , the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) surpassed the Democrats as the largest party for the first time and has since held its superior status. Due to the indirectly elected trade-based functional constituencies which largely favour business interests — represented by the Liberal Party and subsequently the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong (BPA) —

1458-596: The Education and Manpower Bureau ) of the Hong Kong SAR Government. This promoted massive controversy and opposition, and, after a number of complaints were received, the contract was not renewed. In August 2005, the government lost the case Leung TC William Roy v. Secretary for Justice , where the applicant had requested a judicial review by the High Court on the law related to age of consent on gay sex (which

1539-589: The Kensiu language . Legislative Council (Hong Kong) High Court District Court Magistrates' Court Special courts and tribunals: Chief Executive Elections Legislative elections District council elections Consular missions in Hong Kong Hong Kong–China relations Hong Kong–Taiwan relations Download coordinates as: The Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region , colloquially known as LegCo ,

1620-622: The Shanghainese -language character U+20C8E 𠲎 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-20C8E —a composition of 伐 with the ⼝   'MOUTH' radical—used instead of the Standard Chinese 嗎 ; 吗 . Typefaces often use the initialism TC to signify the use of traditional Chinese characters, as well as SC for simplified Chinese characters . In addition, the Noto, Italy family of typefaces, for example, also provides separate fonts for

1701-439: The first direct elections of the Legislative Council held in 1991. The Legislative Council became a fully elected legislature for the first time in 1995 and extensively expanded its functions and organisations throughout the last years of the colonial rule. The People's Republic of China government did not agree with reforms to the Legislative Council enacted by the last Governor Chris Patten in 1994. Therefore, it withdrew

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1782-419: The president of the Legislative Council being ranked first. Members who did not serve throughout the term are italicised . Supplementary members elected in by-elections are listed below. Key to changes since legislative election: The Geographical Constituency (GC) seats are returned by universal suffrage . 20 seats of the Legislative Council are returned by GCs through single non-transferable vote with

1863-419: The pro-Beijing camp since an opposition walkout in 2020. The 2021 changes resulted in a drop in the share of directly elected representatives from 50% to 22% and an increase in the overall number of seats from 70 to 90, along with the establishment of a screening committee to vet candidates. The original two groups (GCs and FCs) had constitutional significance. Government bills requires a simple majority of

1944-488: The 1843 Charter as an advisory council to the Governor . The authority of the colonial legislature expanded throughout its history. A parallel Provisional Legislative Council was put in place by China from 1996 to 1998 to pass laws in anticipation of the Hong Kong handover. The Legislative Council of Hong Kong was set up in 1843 for the first time as a colonial legislature under British rule. Hong Kong's first constitution, in

2025-484: The 1843 charter, added the significant words "and consent" after the words "with the advice". The Legislative Council was initially set up as the advisory body to the governor, and for most of the time, consisted half of official members, who were the government officials seated in the council, and half of unofficial members who were appointed by the Governor . After the Sino-British Joint Declaration

2106-439: The 1997 handover, the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) disqualified two pro-independence legislators from assuming public office pursuant to Article 104 . Four more pro-democracy and localist legislators were unseated in subsequent court cases. Returning officers also disqualified certain candidates who had advocated for Hong Kong self-determination, with or without option for independence, from running in

2187-460: The 2000 election, 24 were directly elected, six elected from an 800-member electoral college known as the Election Committee of Hong Kong , and 30 elected from FCs. Since the 2004 election, all the seats are equally divided between geographical and functional constituencies. According to The Basic Law, while the method for forming the Legislative Council shall be specified in accordance with

2268-683: The Beijing-controlled Election Committee and 30 seats would remain trade-based functional constituencies, reducing the proportion of directly elected seats from 50% to 22%. Additionally all candidates must now be approved by the unelected HKSAR government via the Candidate Eligibility Review Committee. This has led to all parties that are not pro-Beijing declining to run in the elections, as it is now reasonable to assume that any pro-democracy candidates fielded that might be electable will be disqualified prior to

2349-463: The Broadcasting Authority has remained intransigent. In the same complaint as the Autumn's Tale incident, another group of Christians expressed disagreement with what they considered a biased viewpoint in a television documentary titled Gay Lovers ( Chinese : 同志.戀人 ) and demanded that the issue should be discussed from different viewpoints. Produced by Radio Television Hong Kong , the show presented

2430-566: The Chamber, major conference rooms, and communal facilities such as library, cafeteria and education facilities. The range of education facilities for visit by the public includes video corner, visitors' sharing area, exhibition area, children's corner, viewing gallery and access corridors, memory lane, education activities rooms and education galleries. The high block, which will be named as the Office Block, mainly houses offices for members and staff of

2511-1023: The French Mission Building), still standing at Government Hill. From 1848 to 1954 (interrupted by renovation in 1928-9 and the Japanese occupation in 1941–5), it was housed on the upper floor of the Colonial Secretariat Building, Lower Albert Road, replaced in 1957 by the Annex to the Central Government Offices Main Wing, on the same site. In 1985, LegCo moved down to the nearby Old Supreme Court building ( 22°16′52″N 114°09′36″E  /  22.280996°N 114.160116°E  / 22.280996; 114.160116 ) in Central Hong Kong where it remained until November 2011. It took up residence in its present accommodation at

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2592-513: The Hong Kong Police happened on the next day, right after the accusation by the Society for Truth and Light was published on Apple Daily . Eighteen persons, including the designer, owners and other retail staff on duty, were arrested and later bailed. This caused an outcry from the "liberals" describing it as a white terror which "brutally crushed the freedom of expression " as being granted by

2673-652: The Legislative Block of the Central Government Complex, Tamar in December 2011. Unlike many other former and current Commonwealth legislatures, the Hong Kong Legislative Council does not have a ceremonial mace placed in its chambers. However, the high courts of Hong Kong use a mace to open sessions, and it represents the authority and powers of the court. To provide a long-term solution to

2754-611: The Legislative Council Secretariat. Officially opened on 1 August 2011, administrative staff had already taken occupation on 15 January 2011. Under the 2021 Hong Kong electoral changes initiated by the National People's Congress , the Legislative Council is now composed of 90 members returned from 3 constituencies: the Election Committee Constituency , Functional Constituencies and Geographical Constituencies by popular vote. The term of office of

2835-473: The Legislative Council from 60 to 70 seats; adding five seats in the directly elected geographical constituencies and five new District Council (Second) functional constituency seats which are nominated by the District Councillors and elected by all registered electorates. The 2014 Hong Kong electoral reform proposal, which suggested the electoral method of the Legislative Council remain unchanged,

2916-482: The Legislative Council. The reform would allow a new Candidate Eligibility Review Committee, composed entirely of principal officials from the Hong Kong government, to vet candidates for the Legislative Council and would increase its total number of seats from 70 to 90. However, the seats that were directly elected would be reduced from 35 to 20, the five directly elected District Council (Second) seats would also be removed, while an additional 40 seats would be elected by

2997-498: The People's Republic of China, traditional Chinese characters are standardised according to the Table of Comparison between Standard, Traditional and Variant Chinese Characters . Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. There are differences between the accepted traditional forms in mainland China and elsewhere, for example the accepted traditional form of 产 in mainland China

3078-562: The Society, it has been singled out for attacks. The Legislative Council later held a meeting to discuss the decision of the Broadcasting Authority. The Society For Truth And Light, along with other Christian groups, defended the decision of the BA in the session. Under heavy lobbying effort by gay rights, sex workers' rights and liberal Christian groups, the Council passed a motion on 'strongly urging Broadcasting Authority to withdraw its position'. though

3159-571: The United States during the second half of the 19th century, Chinese Americans have long used traditional characters. When not providing both, US public notices and signs in Chinese are generally written in traditional characters, more often than in simplified characters. In the past, traditional Chinese was most often encoded on computers using the Big5 standard, which favored traditional characters. However,

3240-446: The cost. Gay activist and liberal groups again accused the group as a behind-the-scene player again without evidences. The group criticised the content of Chinese University Student Press for including sex and violence, forced the OAT to make the decision, which the content of the magazine was indecent. Some groups against this decision because this may harmed the freedom of press . G.O.D,

3321-619: The council and the Chief Executive a dominant issue in Hong Kong politics. In 2010, the government's constitutional reform proposal became the first and only constitutional move to have been passed by the Legislative Council in the SAR era with the support of the Democratic Party after the Beijing government accepted the modified package as presented by the party, which increased the composition of

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3402-499: The council for passage, whereas private member bills requires simple majorities in two discrete divisions of geographical members and functional members for passage. Therefore, the directly elected legislators (mainly from the GCs) had minimal influence over government policy and legislative agenda. The historical Legislative Council of Hong Kong in the British colonial era was created under

3483-764: The dissolution of District Council (First) and District Council (Second) FCs. Three existing FCs were reconstituted: the Information Technology FC reorganised as the Technology & Innovation FC ; the Medical FC and Health Services FC combined to form the Medical and Health Services FC. Two new FCs were established, namely the Commercial (Third) and the HKSAR Deputies to the National People's Congress, HKSAR Members of

3564-411: The election. In this Legislative Council, 59 of the 90 members elected in the 2021 election were elected for the first time, or were not members of the last Legislative Council . All members are listed by seniority according to the year of the beginning of consecutive service then the order of swearing in (i.e. the number of strokes in the traditional characters of names in Chinese per precedent) with

3645-399: The film as "obscene" based on this complaint. In response, opposing groups launched a counter campaign generating 177 responses. TVB eventually removed the scene containing vulgar language. The decision of the BA provoked an outcry from the liberal groups, who called it 'stupid', 'complete absence of common sense', 'attacking freedom of expression'. Even though the complaint was not launched by

3726-476: The following by-elections; the government expressed support for such decisions. The 2019 amendment of the extradition bill caused an historic political upheaval, where intensive protests erupted throughout the city in the latter half of the year, including the storming of the Legislative Council Complex on the 22nd anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong on 1 July. In July 2020, in light of

3807-504: The form of Queen Victoria 's letters patent , issued on 27 June 1843 and titled the Charter of the Colony of Hong Kong , authorised the establishment of the Legislative Council to advise the Governor of Hong Kong 's administration. The council had four official members including the governor who was president of the council when it was first established. The Letters Patent of 1888, which replaced

3888-444: The government to block Jimmy Lai from hiring Tim Owen as his defense lawyer. In September 2023, a report found that at least 66% of all bills that were passed were done with less than half of all Legislative Council members present, below the 50% attendance threshold for a quorum. The first meetings of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, from 1844 to 1846, were likely convened in the residence of Governor Pottinger (later to be

3969-528: The group to generate complaints about "irresponsible media" through an orchestrated mass mailing campaign. The Society For Truth And Light is criticised for using its relationship with the censorship authorities, such as the Broadcasting Authority (BA) and the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority, to pursue the organisation's goal and mission. An Autumn's Tale ( Chinese : 秋天的童話 ),

4050-539: The inborn immutability and discrimination claimed by the gay and pro-gay activists are "invalid". Other than the society's belief in the biblical norms which it explicitly denies, it claims there is support from related "scientific and social research". On course of consultation on legislation against discrimination on sexuality by Hong Kong Government, the group paid for frontpage advertisements on newspapers explaining their stance. The advertisements were signed by medical professionals who positioned themselves to be experts in

4131-493: The inverse is equally true as well. In digital media, many cultural phenomena imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan into mainland China, such as music videos, karaoke videos, subtitled movies, and subtitled dramas, use traditional Chinese characters. In Hong Kong and Macau , traditional characters were retained during the colonial period, while the mainland adopted simplified characters. Simplified characters are contemporaneously used to accommodate immigrants and tourists, often from

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4212-437: The legislature with virtually no opposition. On 27 January 2021, CCP general secretary Xi Jinping said that Hong Kong could only maintain its long-term stability and security by ensuring "patriots governing Hong Kong" when he reviewed a work report delivered by Carrie Lam . In March 2021, China's National People's Congress passed a resolution that authorised an overhaul of Hong Kong's electoral system , including that of

4293-725: The mainland. The increasing use of simplified characters has led to concern among residents regarding protecting what they see as their local heritage. Taiwan has never adopted simplified characters. The use of simplified characters in government documents and educational settings is discouraged by the government of Taiwan. Nevertheless, with sufficient context simplified characters are likely to be successfully read by those used to traditional characters, especially given some previous exposure. Many simplified characters were previously variants that had long been in some use, with systematic stroke simplifications used in folk handwriting since antiquity. Traditional characters were recognized as

4374-682: The majority of Chinese text in mainland China are simplified characters , there is no legislation prohibiting the use of traditional Chinese characters, and often traditional Chinese characters remain in use for stylistic and commercial purposes, such as in shopfront displays and advertising. Traditional Chinese characters remain ubiquitous on buildings that predate the promulgation of the current simplification scheme, such as former government buildings, religious buildings, educational institutions, and historical monuments. Traditional Chinese characters continue to be used for ceremonial, cultural, scholarly/academic research, and artistic/decorative purposes. In

4455-975: The merging of previously distinct character forms. Many Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between these character sets. Traditional characters are known by different names throughout the Chinese-speaking world. The government of Taiwan officially refers to traditional Chinese characters as 正體字 ; 正体字 ; zhèngtǐzì ; 'orthodox characters'. This term is also used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard characters, including both simplified, and traditional, from other variants and idiomatic characters . Users of traditional characters elsewhere, as well as those using simplified characters, call traditional characters 繁體字 ; 繁体字 ; fántǐzì ; 'complex characters', 老字 ; lǎozì ; 'old characters', or 全體字 ; 全体字 ; quántǐzì ; 'full characters' to distinguish them from simplified characters. Some argue that since traditional characters are often

4536-448: The middle of the 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of the predominant forms. Simplified characters as codified by the People's Republic of China are predominantly used in mainland China , Malaysia, and Singapore. "Traditional" as such is

4617-665: The official script in Singapore until 1969, when the government officially adopted Simplified characters. Traditional characters still are widely used in contexts such as in baby and corporation names, advertisements, decorations, official documents and in newspapers. The Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative in Southeast Asia regarding simplification. Although major public universities teach in simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications such as

4698-700: The original standard forms, they should not be called 'complex'. Conversely, there is a common objection to the description of traditional characters as 'standard', due to them not being used by a large population of Chinese speakers. Additionally, as the process of Chinese character creation often made many characters more elaborate over time, there is sometimes a hesitation to characterize them as 'traditional'. Some people refer to traditional characters as 'proper characters' ( 正字 ; zhèngzì or 正寫 ; zhèngxiě ) and to simplified characters as 簡筆字 ; 简笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'simplified-stroke characters' or 減筆字 ; 减笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'reduced-stroke characters', as

4779-575: The police, the printing carried by these T-shirts were contravening the section 151 of the Societies Ordinance. However, sales of the T-shirts went unnoticed since its debut in September 2007 and did not catch public attention until an interview involving the Society for Truth and Light on 31 October 2007, who accused G.O.D. of glorifying triads and imposing a "negative" impact on children. The raid by

4860-459: The previous so-called "through-train" policy that would have allowed for members elected to the colonial Legislative Council automatically becoming members of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) legislature. Instead, the Beijing government resolved to set up an alternative legislative council in preparation for the return of Hong Kong sovereignty from Britain to China. Before the 1997 handover of Hong Kong , rather than working through

4941-408: The principle of gradual and orderly progress, the ultimate aim is to elect all Council members by universal suffrage ( Article 68 of The Basic Law of Hong Kong ). However, under the 2021 overhaul, the seats that were directly elected would be reduced from 35 back down to 20, the five directly elected District Council (Second) seats would also be removed, while an additional 40 seats would be elected by

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5022-610: The pro-Beijing Election Committee and 30 seats would remain trade-based functional constituencies. Every candidate must have nominations from each of the five sectors in the Election Committee. The seventh Legislative Council term, beginning in January 2022, made changes where lawmakers' names were replaced with "a member" or "members" in meeting minutes, a change which the Hong Kong Journalists Association said

5103-422: The pro-Beijing camp has been able to keep the majority in the legislature despite receiving fewer votes than the pro-democracy bloc in the direct elections. Article 68 of the Hong Kong Basic Law states that the ultimate aim is the election of all the members of the Legislative Council by universal suffrage . This and a similar article dealing with election of the Chief Executive have made universal suffrage for

5184-415: The pro-democrats' attempt to seize the majority of the Legislative Council in the midst of the largely unpopular Carrie Lam government , the government postponed the seventh general election , citing the COVID-19 spike . At variance with the four-year term set out in the Basic Law, the NPCSC decided in August that the sitting Legislative Council should continue with its duties for at least one year; however,

5265-476: The same motion for An Autumn's Tale case, urged the Broadcasting Authority to withdraw its decision. Following a successful lawsuit by the gay man depicted in the documentary, the Court of First Instance made an order of certiorari to quash the admonition of the Authority, and further declared that the Authority had no power to revisit its determination. The Society For Truth And Light strongly opposes gay rights and same-sex marriage because it claims that

5346-447: The space shortage problem facing both the Government and the Legislative Council, the Government commissioned the Tamar Development for the design and construction of the Central Government Complex , the Legislative Council Complex and other ancillary facilities in 2008. The Legislative Council Complex comprises a low block and a high block: the low block, which will be named the Council Block, mainly houses conference facilities including

5427-557: The study of sexually transmitted diseases, they implied that there is a link between homosexuality and paedophilia . The Society For Truth And Light has paid for advertisement space in the front and second pages of various newspaper for 23 consecutive days, amounting to an estimated cost of about $ 1 million Hong Kong dollars(approximately US$ 128,000). The proposed bill is then frozen by the government in response to "public sentiment". The group oppose anti-discrimination law of sexual orientation . The group constantly maintains itself as

5508-449: The term of the upcoming LegCo would remain four years. In a November decision, the NPCSC disqualified LegCo members on grounds such as Hong Kong independence, Chinese sovereignty, and solicitation of foreign intervention, impacting four sitting legislators whose candidacies had been invalidated in the postponed election. After the disqualification, the 15 remaining pro-democracy legislators announced their resignation in protest , leaving

5589-528: The traditional character set used in Taiwan ( TC ) and the set used in Hong Kong ( HK ). Most Chinese-language webpages now use Unicode for their text. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends the use of the language tag zh-Hant to specify webpage content written with traditional characters. In the Japanese writing system , kyujitai are traditional forms, which were simplified to create shinjitai for standardized Japanese use following World War II. Kyūjitai are mostly congruent with

5670-819: The traditional characters in Chinese, save for minor stylistic variation. Characters that are not included in the jōyō kanji list are generally recommended to be printed in their traditional forms, with a few exceptions. Additionally, there are kokuji , which are kanji wholly created in Japan, rather than originally being borrowed from China. In the Korean writing system , hanja —replaced almost entirely by hangul in South Korea and totally replaced in North Korea —are mostly identical with their traditional counterparts, save minor stylistic variations. As with Japanese, there are autochthonous hanja, known as gukja . Traditional Chinese characters are also used by non-Chinese ethnic groups. The Maniq people living in Thailand and Malaysia use Chinese characters to write

5751-412: The ubiquitous Unicode standard gives equal weight to simplified and traditional Chinese characters, and has become by far the most popular encoding for Chinese-language text. There are various input method editors (IMEs) available for the input of Chinese characters . Many characters, often dialectical variants, are encoded in Unicode but cannot be inputted using certain IMEs, with one example being

5832-569: The voting system adopted in GCs is a system of party-list proportional representation , with seats allocated by the largest remainder method using the Hare quota as the quota for election. Under the 2021 Hong Kong electoral changes , 28 functional constituencies (FC) return 30 members. The Labour Functional Constituency returns three members by block voting . The other FCs return one member each with first-past-the-post voting . The 2021 electoral reform saw

5913-571: The words for simplified and reduced are homophonous in Standard Chinese , both pronounced as jiǎn . The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han dynasty c.  200 BCE , with the sets of forms and norms more or less stable since the Southern and Northern dynasties period c.  the 5th century . Although

5994-841: The work of the government. In addition, the Legislative Council also has the power to endorse the appointment and removal of the judges of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal and the Chief Judge of the High Court , as well as the power to impeach the Chief Executive of Hong Kong . Following the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests , the National People's Congress disqualified several opposition councillors and initiated an electoral overhaul in 2021. The current Legislative Council consists of three groups of constituencies— geographical constituencies (GCs), functional constituencies (FCs), and Election Committee constituencies —and has been dominated by

6075-558: Was being set to 21 at the time), on the ground that the provisions in Section 118, Crimes Ordinance is discriminatory and against both the Basic Law of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Bill of Rights . However, the government has decided to appeal against the ruling on the grounds of "public health". Eventually the appeal was turned down by the Court of Appeal and the government was ordered to pay

6156-557: Was established on 1 October 1998 under the Hong Kong Basic Law . The first meeting of the council was held in July of the same year. Five subsequent Legislative Council elections have been held — the most recent being held on 4 September 2016 . The Democratic Party had briefly held the largest-party status in the early years of the SAR period, but its support was slowly eaten away by its pro-democracy allies such as The Frontier and later

6237-525: Was in operation from 25 January 1997 to 30 June 1998 and held its meetings in Shenzhen until 30 June 1997, when the PLC moved to Hong Kong and replaced the elected legislature from the 1997 handover of Hong Kong until the 1998 Hong Kong legislative election . Since 2000, the terms of the Legislative Council have been four years, with the exception of the 6th Legislative Council . The current HKSAR Legislative Council

6318-486: Was negative and that "One one hand, that would make it more difficult for the public to hold lawmakers accountable, and therefore affect how voters may vote." In April 2023, a survey found that half of Hongkongers were unable to name any serving lawmaker, with another 12% naming somebody not a current lawmaker. In May 2023, the Legislative Council voted with 100% approval to let the chief executive restrict overseas lawyers from national security cases, following attempts by

6399-400: Was quoted out of context in one newspaper that one of its founders believes that it is immoral for women to wear bikinis ; and as Choi Chi-Sum as admitted in an interview, he believes that masturbation is immoral regardless of marital status . Gay rights groups and promoters of sex workers' rights associate the group with Christian Rightists in United States. While itself registered as

6480-548: Was signed on 19 December 1984 (in which the United Kingdom agreed to the handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China on 1 July 1997), the Hong Kong government decided to start the process of democratisation based on the consultative document, Green Paper: the Further Development of Representative Government in Hong Kong on 18 July 1984. The first elections to the Council were held in 1985 , followed by

6561-404: Was vetoed in 2015, after a massive occupation protest demanding universal suffrage — often dubbed the " Umbrella Revolution " — broke out in 2014. The 2016 New Territories East by-election and September general election saw the rise of localist tide where a number of pro-independence candidates were elected to the council. In November, in Beijing's fifth interpretation of the Basic Law since

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