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ong Pit-man resigned As of now, Kwok is the only for- Those Who Left
from her post as Kwai mer councilor being asked to pay back Wong is angered by how the gov-
WTsing district councilor expenses. ernment has made use of the oath tak-
on July 9 and is now member of a con- Kwok stated in a Facebook post ing procedure to remove elected pro-
cern group “Tsing Yi People”. on October 22 that he would continue democracy councilors.
“I will continue to actively partic- to communicate with the Home Af- “I think this is shameful. It shows
ipate in social affairs to help connect fairs Bureau and reserve all legal rights that the government is unwilling to
residents in the district,” Wong says. on this incident. But on November 12 accept opposition and will do every-
She was one of the 327 pro-de- he said he left Hong Kong “owing to thing in their power to eliminate op-
mocracy district councilors who quit- personal reasons”, adding he would be posing views, even when our views
ted after various local media outlets back “sometime in the future”. are solid and reflect public opinion,”
reported in July that the government The city’s District Council, envi- she says.
might ask them to repay salaries they sioned as advisory bodies for the gov- Wong points out it is more chal-
received if their oath to pledge alle- ernment at the municipal level, be- lenging to deal with district affairs
giance to the Hong Kong government came a stronghold for the opposition without the official title of “district
was declared invalid. camp following a landslide win in the councilor”.
District councilors, same as sen- 2019 elections, which took place at the “Now we can only focus on gen-
ior government officials, legislators height of that year’s anti-government eral district issues, such as buses be-
and judges, are required to swear to protests. ing late, instead of being able to take
uphold the Basic Law and pledge al- Among the 452 elected coun- care of resident’s wellbeing, such as air
legiance to the city to ensure they are cilors, 389 were from the pro-democ- conditioning in their flats,” she says.
sufficiently patriotic following Bei- racy camp. “It is also harder to follow up is-
jing’s imposition of the national secu- Only 62 of the pro-democracy sues. A bus company used to respond
rity law in June 2020. councilors remain in the council now. quickly to our enquiries but now it is
Wong’s fear of being asked by the The large number of resignations and very difficult to get a reply,” she con-
government to repay salaries and re- disqualifications means that many dis- tinues.
imbursed expenses was proven true. trict councils have too few members Wong thinks it is meaningless for
Kwok Tin-lap, a former Kowloon to properly function. In the Central democrats to participate in future dis-
City district councilor from the Dem- and Western District Council, where trict council elections as the govern-
ocratic Party, who was unseated on there were originally 15 councilors, ment screens candidates basing on
September 29 after his oath to pledge only three remain now. their political beliefs.
allegiance to the SAR government
was declared invalid. He revealed on
October 14 that the Home Affairs Bu-
reau required him to pay back over
HK$110,000 worth of expenses.

Kwok Tin-lap’s Facebook status stating his leaving from
the post (Screenshot from Kwok Tin-lap’s Facebook)