Socio-Legal Discussion Group: Custodians of Dissent: Hong Kong's Former Pro-Democracy Protestors under the National Security Law

This presentation outlines how grassroots political life in Hong Kong has been reconfigured in the aftermath of the 2020 National Security Law. Focusing on former participants in the historic 2019 Protests (or anti-ELAB movement), it examines how political cultural repertoires long shaped by rule-of-law ideals and rights-based discourses are persisting and adapting as Hong Kong moves toward an increasingly illiberal legal order. 

Drawing on interviews and fieldwork, the presentation details how former protestors navigate new legal constraints through quieter, personalised forms of soft resistance — practices which manage legal risk and are increasingly described by participants as a means of safeguarding and transmitting liberal values and political identities. The discussion offers a socio-legal perspective on how political behaviour transforms under tightening legal control, with implications for understanding the resilience of liberal and democratic ideologies in other contexts of rule-of-law backsliding.