Hong Kong’s leader has ordered the group behind the city’s annual Tiananmen Square vigil be struck from the Companies Registry, citing national security concerns, resulting in its immediate dissolution.

The move on Tuesday came a month after the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China voted to cease operating immediately, and appointed two liquidators to initiate winding-up procedures.

Earlier in September, the Security Bureau had confirmed it was in the process of revoking the alliance’s company registration, citing alleged violations of the Beijing-imposed national security law.

According to a statement released by the government, the Executive Council, chaired by city leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, ordered the registrar of companies on Tuesday to remove the alliance pursuant to the Companies Ordinance.

“The [Exco] noted that, amongst other matters, the relevant evidence demonstrates that the alliance has always maintained and promoted its five operational goals, including ‘ending one-party dictatorship’,” a spokesman said.

He added that since the national security law prohibited subversion, the Exco agreed that it was necessary to prohibit the alliance from operating, even though it had already voted to disband.

“Safeguarding national security is a matter of fundamental importance,” the spokesman said in the statement. “Prohibition of the operation of the alliance is a necessary and proportionate restriction on the rights to freedom of association and freedom of speech or expression.

“There is a practical need for the government to take speedy measures in accordance with the law.”

National security police raid the alliance’s June 4 museum in Mong Kok in September.

Exco member and barrister Ronny Tong Ka-wah said that while he could not comment specifically on the alliance’s case, it would generally be slower for a company to wind up voluntarily than under a process initiated by the registry itself.

“Under the mandatory winding-up procedures, the government’s Official Receiver’s Office would handle the matter … and it takes effect immediately,” he said.

Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong, the alliance’s liquidator, had earlier said the closure came quicker than expected.

“Originally we thought that it would take a few months, but there were complications after police froze our property and all our bank accounts,” he said.

In a statement, Tsoi also described the government’s decision as “incomprehensible and regrettable”.

“The alliance has approved the resolution to wind up. It is undergoing liquidation … I cannot see why the chief executive and the Exco needed to do this,” he said.

“When the alliance responded to the security chief’s queries last month, we also made it clear that we could not see any sufficient grounds or evidence for the government to say that our existence endangered national security.”

Under the Companies Ordinance, the Exco may order the registrar to strike a business from the register if its operations are deemed by the secretary for security to be a threat to national security, public safety, public order or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Previously labelled “subversive” by Beijing, the alliance had operated in Hong Kong since May of 1989. Among its five stated goals were “ending one-party dictatorship” on the mainland, “building a democratic China” and “demanding accountability” for the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Hong Kong authorities had banned the alliance from holding its annual June 4 candlelight vigil in Victoria Park for two years running, citing public health grounds amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The vigil had been the only large-scale commemoration of the 1989 crackdown on Chinese soil.