April Fifth Action ( zh, t=四五行動) is a Hong Kong

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

group named after the first Tiananmen incident of 5 April 1976. While the organization's Chinese name translates as "April Fifth Action", English-language media in Hong Kong usually refer to it as the April Fifth Action Group (AFAG).

Beliefs

The April Fifth Action Group was formed on the basis of the Trotskyite

vanguard party Vanguardism, a core concept of Leninism, is the idea that a revolutionary vanguard party, composed of the most conscious and disciplined workers, must lead the proletariat in overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism, ultimately progres ...

Revolutionary Marxist League which was disbanded in 1990. Legislative Council members "Longhair"

Leung Kwok-hung Leung Kwok-hung ( zh, t=梁國雄; born 27 March 1956), also known by his nickname "Long Hair" (), is a Hong Kong politician and social activist. He was a member of the Legislative Council, representing the New Territories East. A Trotskyist ...

and

Leung Yiu-chung Leung Yiu-chung (, born 19 May 1953) is a Hong Kong politician. He is a member of the pro-labour Neighbourhood and Worker's Service Centre, which is a part of the pan-democracy camp. He has had a long-standing tenure as a member of the Legi ...

were the founding members of the April Fifth Action Group. The group believes that without a democratic China, it would be impossible to have a democratic Hong Kong.Wing-kai Chiu, Stephen. Lui, Tai-Lok. The Dynamics of Social Movement in Hong Kong.

000 Triple zero, Zero Zero Zero, 0-0-0 or variants may refer to: * 000 (emergency telephone number), the Australian emergency telephone number * 000, the size of several small List of screw drives, screw drives * 0-0-0, a Droid (Star Wars)#0-0-0, dro ...

(2000). Hong Kong University Press. . The group is aligned with the

pro-democracy camp The pro-democracy camp, also known as the pan-democracy camp, is a political alignment in Hong Kong that supports increased democracy, namely the universal suffrage of the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council as given by the Basic La ...

in its opposition to the governments of China and the HKSAR. The group calls for

universal suffrage Universal suffrage or universal franchise ensures the right to vote for as many people bound by a government's laws as possible, as supported by the " one person, one vote" principle. For many, the term universal suffrage assumes the exclusion ...

in Hong Kong, opposes unemployment and poverty, eliminates pro-government parties, terminates one-party dictatorship in China, sets up unemployment benefits and

minimum wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. List of countries by minimum wage, Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation b ...

and strives for the right to hold plebiscites in Hong Kong. It also calls for release of all dissidents in mainland China and accountability for the Tiananmen massacre of 1989.

Protests

The group is well known for its aggressive and

civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active and professed refusal of a citizenship, citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders, or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be cal ...

-style actions to protest against the governments of China and Hong Kong during celebrations and visits of state leaders, often resulting in confrontations with the

Hong Kong police The Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) is the primary law enforcement, investigative agency, and largest Hong Kong Disciplined Services, disciplined service under the Security Bureau (Hong Kong), Security Bureau of Hong Kong. Pursuant to the one c ...

. They usually carry a coffin as their trademark protest prop. Its members have also been prosecuted for disrupting meetings of the

Legislative Council of Hong Kong The Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, colloquially known as LegCo, is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Hong Kong. It sits under People's Republic of China, China's "one country, two systems" c ...

(LegCo). The group was one of the major supporters of the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989 in Hong Kong. Its members went to the

New China News Agency Xinhua News Agency (English pronunciation: ),J. C. Wells: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd ed., for both British and American English or New China News Agency, is the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China. It is a ...

Hong Kong branch demanding the PRC government open dialogue with students on democratic reform and rule of law in late April. It condemned the bloody suppression of the protest. The members were prosecuted with the Summer Offences Ordinance after their demonstrations outside a reception hosted by the New China News Agency on 29 September 1989 to mark the

National Day of the People's Republic of China National Day ( zh, s=国庆节, t=, p=guóqìng jié, l=national celebration day, links=yes), officially the National Day of the People's Republic of China (), is a public holiday in China celebrated annually on 1 October as the national da ...

. That raised concern that the British administration might be using out-of-date and repressive colonial laws for the political appeasing the People's Republic of China government after Beijing accusations that the British Hong Kong administration was allowing Hong Kong to be used as a base for subversion of the People's Republic of China. In a protest on 1 June 1997 just a month before the

handover of Hong Kong The handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China was at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the former colony, which began in 1841. Hong Kong was established as a specia ...

which drew a crowd of 5,000 people in Hong Kong going from Chater Garden to the New China News Agency. The group was blocked off by the Hong Kong police, and did not succeed in presenting a petition to the news office. While the event led Hong Kong news headlines, China's main

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...

station promoted the opposite propaganda on the mainland by featuring children in

Wan Chai Wan Chai (Traditional Chinese characters, Chinese: 灣仔) is located in the western part of Wan Chai District on the northern shore of Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. It is bounded by Canal Road, Hong Kong, Canal Road to the east, Arsenal St ...

waiving PRC flags. Critics have questioned the effectiveness of the group, since Beijing has continued to censor news of the group's activities entirely in the mainland.Knight, Alan. Nakano, Yoshiko.

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(1999). Reporting Hong Kong: Foreign Media and the Handover. Palgrave Macmillan.

Elections

The group's most famous member,

, unsuccessfully contested both the 2000 LegCo election and 2003 District Council elections. He considered the latter battle a victory because of the number of votes he got in the Kam Ping constituency which traditionally supports

pro-Beijing The pro-Beijing camp, pro-establishment camp or pro-China camp is a political alignment in Hong Kong which generally supports the policies of the Beijing central government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) towards Hong Kong. The term " ...

candidates. He finally succeeded in the 2004 LegCo election and became the first member of the April Fifth Action in the Legislative Council. His election was widely viewed as a protest vote against the unpopular administration of then Chief Executive

Tung Chee-hwa Tung Chee-hwa (; born May 29, 1937) is a Hong Kong businessman and retired politician who served as the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong between 1997 and 2005, upon the transfer of sovereignty on 1 July. He served as a vice chairman of th ...

. Leung attracted controversy by refusing to take the standard oath required for all legislators, instead reciting his own expanded version. Leung Kwok-hung gained most of his voter popularity owing to his relatively radical stance on various issues, criticising the indecision and inefficiency that paralysed the Hong Kong government due to weak leadership under Tung Chee-hwa. Leung was re-elected with an increased majority in 2008 under the

League of Social Democrats The League of Social Democrats (LSD) is a social democratic party in Hong Kong. Chaired by Chan Po-ying, wife of Leung Kwok-hung, it positions itself as the radical wing of the pro-democracy camp and stresses on "street actions" and "parlia ...

banner, becoming the candidate with the most votes in his constituency.

Electoral performance

Legislative Council elections

References

{{Hong Kong political parties 1988 establishments in Hong Kong Political parties established in 1988 Member organisations of the Civil Human Rights Front Pro-democracy camp (Hong Kong) Socialist parties in Hong Kong