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HONG KONG: Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong was arrested on Thursday (September 24) in connection with a protest at the height of pro-democracy riots in the city last year, his lawyer said.
The arrest of the city’s most prominent dissident is the latest in a series of arrests of government critics and comes after China imposed a comprehensive new national security law in Hong Kong in late June.
He was arrested for “illegal gathering” during a 2019 rally against the government’s ban on face masks that was imposed before the coronavirus pandemic, his lawyer said.
The 23-year-old pro-democracy figure said on Twitter that he was also in custody for violating the anti-mask law, which has since been declared unconstitutional.
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Wong’s lawyer told AFP that he was detained when he appeared at a police station about another case against him, for which he is currently being tried.
“Wong is accused of participating in an illegal assembly on October 5 last year, when hundreds of people marched to oppose a ban on masks implemented by the government,” said attorney Jonathan Man.
That day’s march came after much of the city stopped with the subway suspended and many shops and malls closed after a night of violence.
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Hundreds of protesters, almost all masked, staged the unauthorized rally in the popular Causeway Bay business district, a day after city leader Carrie Lam banned the masks invoking colonial-era emergency powers that were not they had used for half a century.
The act of resistance came after a night of widespread chaos as staunch protesters vandalized dozens of subway stations, smashed shops with ties to mainland China, lit fires and blocked roads. Many chanted “No troublemakers, just tyranny” and other popular protest slogans.
At the time of the march, Hong Kong had already been hit by four months of increasingly violent pro-democracy protests.
