The move was made by US lawmakers to honour the struggle of the people, who participated in the movement, against a national security law that Beijing imposed on the city without local input, a move that is sure to anger the Chinese government.

“We are nominating a movement that has peacefully advocated for and maintained human rights and democracy in Hong Kong since 1997 and continues to fight against the erosion of these rights,” Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, Representative James McGovern, a Democrat, and seven other lawmakers, wrote to Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Nobel Peace Prize committee as quoted by the newspaper.

“A number of democracy advocates are already in jail, some in exile, and many more awaiting trials where they are expected to be convicted and sentenced in the coming months for the sole reason of peacefully expressing their political views through speech, publication, elections, or assembly,” the signatories, all members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, wrote in the letter dated Sunday and made public on Wednesday.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, was handed over to China in 1997, and the Basic Law preserves its autonomy as a Special Administrative Region under the principle of “one country, two systems”.