Taoist group Sik Sik Yuen has torn down a wall surrounding a family graveyard next to its Wong Tai Sin Temple and says it wants to surrender management rights after years of disputes with the Lam clan, which settled in Hong Kong 800 years ago.
It removed the wall on Wednesday - in a move condemned by a family member as offensive - and wrote to the Home Affairs Department saying it is giving up management rights it has held since 1970.
The 2,500 sq ft graveyard, built nearly 200 years ago on land now owned by the government, contains two tombs of Lam ancestors.
Lam Tai-pong, a 23rd-generation member of the clan, said the demolition of the wall was 'very offensive'.
'It is like taking off an old man's clothes forcefully and is an act of disrespect,' Lam, a University of Hong Kong professor of medicine, said.
The conflicts started 10 years ago, when Sik Sik Yuen built a toilet three metres from the tombs. The clan said it smelled and damaged the fung shui. The clan also complained the group covered windows in the wall with metal sheets, put a metal gate in front of the tombs, set up unauthorised buildings and required registration a week before worshipping.