Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker barred from contesting local election

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong authorities have barred a pro-democracy lawmaker from running in a local election for "implicitly" supporting Hong Kong's independence from China, in what critics said was another instance of civil rights being eroded in the China-ruled city

Eddie Chu, a former journalist who was democratically elected as one of Hong Kong's 70 legislators in a 2016 election, had planned to contest a separate grassroots poll to represent a village in the rural hinterland of the New Territories.