Joshua Wong Chi-fung (born 13
October 1996) is a Hong Kong student activist and politician who serves as
secretary-general of pro-democracy party DemosistÅ. Wong was previously
convenor and founder of the Hong Kong student activist group Scholarism. Wong first
rose to international prominence during the 2014 Hong Kong protests, and his
pivotal role in the Umbrella Movement resulted in his inclusion in TIME
magazine's Most Influential Teens of 2014 and nomination for its 2014 Person of
the Year; he was further called one of the "world's greatest leaders"
by Fortune magazine in 2015, and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in
2017.
In August 2017, Wong and two other
pro-democracy activists were convicted and jailed for their roles in the
occupation of Civic Square at the incipient stage of the 2014 Occupy Central
protests; in January 2018, Wong was convicted and jailed again for failing to
comply with a court order for clearance of the Mong Kok protest site during the
Mong Kong protests in 2014.
Early Life
Joshua Wong was born in Hong Kong on 13
October 1996, and was diagnosed with dyslexia in early childhood. The son of
middle-class couple Grace and Roger Wong, Wong was raised as a Protestant
Christian in the Lutheran tradition. His social awareness stems from his
father, a retired IT professional, who often took him as a child to visit the
underprivileged.
Wong studied at the United Christian
College (Kowloon East), a private Christian middle school in Kowloon, and
developed organisational and speaking skills through involvement in church
groups.
Emergence as an Activist
The 2010 anti-high speed rail protests
were the first political protests in which Wong took part.
On 29 May 2011, Wong and schoolmate Ivan
Lam Long-yin established Scholarism, a student activist group. The group began
with simple means of protest, such as the distribution of leaflets against the
newly-announced moral and national education (MNE). In time, however, Wong's
group grew in both size and influence, and in 2012 managed to organise a
political rally attended by over 100,000 people. Wong received widespread
attention as the group's convenor.
Role in 2014 Hong Kong Protests
In June 2014, Scholarism drafted a plan
to reform Hong Kong's electoral system to push for universal suffrage, under
one country, two systems. His group strongly advocated for the inclusion of
civic nomination in the 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive Election. Wong as a
student leader started a class boycott among Hong Kong's students to send a
pro-democracy message to Beijing.
On 27 September 2014, Wong was one of
the 78 people arrested by the police during a massive pro-democracy protest,
after hundreds of students occupied Civic Square in front of the Central
Government Complex as a sign of protest against Beijing's decision on the 2014
Hong Kong electoral reform. Unlike fellow protesters, only in response to a
court order obtained by writ of habeas corpus was Wong released by
police, after 46 hours in custody.
During the protests, Wong stated:
"Among all the people in Hong Kong, there is only one person who can
decide whether the current movement will last and he is [Chief Executive of the
region] Leung. If Leung can accept our demands ... (the) movement will
naturally come to an end." On 25 September 2014 the state-owned Wen Wei Po
published an article which claimed that "US forces" had worked to
cultivate Wong as a "political superstar". Wong in turn denied every
detail in the report through a statement that he subsequently posted online.
Wong also said that he was mentioned by name in mainland China's Blue Paper on
National Security, which identified internal threats to the stability of Communist
Party rule; quoting a line in V for Vendetta, he in turn said that "People
should not be afraid of their government, the government should be afraid of
their people."
Wong was charged on 27 November 2014
with obstructing a bailiff clearing one of Hong Kong's three protest areas. His
lawyer described the charge as politically motivated. He was banned from a
large part of Mong Kok, one of the protester-occupied sites, as one of the bail
conditions. Wong claimed that police beat him and tried to injure his groin as
he was arrested, and taunted and swore at him while he was in custody.
After Wong's appearance at Kowloon City
Magistrates' Court on 27 November 2014, he was pelted with eggs by two
assailants. They were arrested and each fined $3,000 in August 2015, sentences
which, on application for review by the prosection, were subsequently enhanced
to two weeks' imprisonment.
On 2 December 2014, Wong and two other
students began an indefinite hunger strike to demand renewed talks with the
Hong Kong government. He decided to end the hunger strike after four days on
medical advice.
Aftermath of the Occupy Protests
Wong was arrested and held for three
hours on Friday, 16 January 2015, for his alleged involvement in offences of
calling for, inciting and participating in an unauthorized assembly.
The same month, an article appeared in
the Pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po alleging that Wong had met with the
US consul-general in Hong Kong Stephen M. Young during the latter's visit in
2011. It suggested that Wong had links with the Central Intelligence Agency of
the United States, which had supposedly offered him military training by the US
Army. Wong responded that the claims were pure fiction and "more like
jokes."
Wong was denied entry into Malaysia at
Penang International Airport, on 26 May 2015, on the basis that he was
considered "a threat to Malaysia's ties with China", largely due to
his supposed "anti-China" stance in participating in the 2014 Hong
Kong protests.
On 28 June 2015, two days before a
protest in favor of democracy, Wong and his girlfriend were attacked by an
unknown man after watching a film in Mong Kok. The assault sent the two to
hospital. Wong sustained injuries to his nose and eyes. No one was arrested.
On 19 August 2015, Wong was formally
charged by the Hong Kong Department of Justice with inciting other people to
join an unlawful assembly and also joining an unlawful assembly, alongside Alex
Chow, the former leader of the Hong Kong Federation of Students.
While traveling to Taiwan for a
political seminar, "pro-China" protesters attempted to assault Wong
at the arrival hall of Taoyuan's Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport,
necessitating police protection. It was later found that local gangsters were
involved.
Demosisto
In April 2016, Wong founded a new
political party, DemosistÅ, with other Scholarism leaders including Agnes Chow,
Oscar Lai and Umbrella activists, the original student activist group
Scholarism having been disbanded. The party advocates for a referendum to be
held to determine Hong Kong's sovereignty after 2047, when the One Country, Two
Systems principle as enshrined in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the
Hong Kong Basic Law expires. As the founding secretary-general of the party,
Wong also planned to contest the 2016 Legislative Council election. Wong was
still only 19 and being below the statutory minimum age of 21 for candidacy, he
filed an application (ultimately unsuccessful) for judicial review of the
election law, in October 2015. After his decision to found his own political
party, Wong became a focus of criticism, especially on social networks.
Detention in Thailand
Joshua Wong was detained on arrival in
Thailand on 5 October 2016. He had been invited to speak about his Umbrella
Movement experience at an event marking the 40th anniversary of the Thammasat
University massacre, hosted by Chulalongkorn University.
A Thai student activist who invited
Wong, Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, said that Thai authorities had received a
request from the Chinese government earlier regarding Wong's visit. His own
request to see Wong was denied.
After nearly 12 hours' detention, Wong
was deported to Hong Kong. Wong claimed that, upon detention, the authorities
would say no more than that he had been blacklisted but, just prior to
deportation, they had informed him that his deportation was pursuant to
Sections 19, 22 and 54 of the Immigration Act B.E. 2522.
Hong Kong Legislator Claudia Mo called
the incident "despicable" and stated: "If this becomes a
precedent it means it could happen to you or me at any time if somehow Beijing
thinks you are a dangerous, unwelcome person". Jason Y. Ng, a Hong Kong
journalist and author, stated that Wong's detention showed "how ready
Beijing is to flex its diplomatic muscles and [how it] expects neighbouring
governments to play ball".
Wong eventually spoke with a Thai
audience from Hong Kong via Skype.
CAN Singapore Incident
On 23 December 2016, Singapore Police
Force investigated organisers of a Community Action Network Singapore event in
which Joshua Wong had participated from Hong Kong via Skype, for Wong's failure
to hold an employment visa and police permit to participate as a foreigner in a
domestic talk, notwithstanding his not even being present.
Imprisonment
Wong, along with two other prominent
Hong Kong pro-democracy student leaders Nathan Law and Alex Chow, were jailed
for six to eight months on 17 August 2017 for unlawful assembly (Wong and Law)
and incitement to assemble unlawfully (Chow) at Civic Square, at the Central
Government Complex in the Tamar site, during a protest that triggered the
79-day Occupy sit-ins of 2014. The sentences halted their political careers, as
they would be barred from running for public office for five years.
On the third anniversary of the 2014
protests, 28 September 2017, Wong started the first of a series of columns for
the Guardian, written from the Pik Uk Correctional Institution, where he says
that despite a dull and dry life there, he remains proud of his commitment to
the movement.
On 13 October 2017, Wong was convicted
with 19 others of contempt of court for obstructing execution of the court's
order for clearance of part of the Occupy Central protest zone in Mong Kok in
October 2014. The order had been obtained by a public minibus association.
On 14 November 2017, Wong, together with
Ivan Lam, commenced an application for judicial review in the High Court
challenging the constitutionality of the provision in the Legislative Council
Ordinance preventing persons sentenced to terms of imprisonment exceeding three
months from standing for office for
five years from the date of conviction.
On 18 January 2018, Wong was sentenced
by Mr Justice Andrew H C Chan of the High Court to three months' imprisonment
in respect of his October 2017 conviction for contempt of court. Nineteen other protesters convicted in respect
of the same incident all received prison terms, though the terms were suspended
for all but Wong and fellow protester Raphael Wong. As part of his reasoning,
Chan expressed the view that, by November 2014, the protests had become pointless and their only effect was to
impact the lives of "ordinary citizens" of the region.
Nobel Peace Prize Nomination
On 1 February 2018, a bipartisan group
of US lawmakers, led by Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC)
Chair US Senator Marco Rubio and co-chair US Representative Chris Smith
announced they had nominated Wong, Nathan Law, Alex Chow and the entire
Umbrella Movement for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, for "their peaceful
efforts to bring political reform and protect the autonomy and freedoms
guaranteed Hong Kong in the Sino-British Joint Declaration.”
Imprisonments in 2019
Joshua Wong was sentenced to two months
of prison on May 16, 2019 for his involvement in events on 26 November 2014 in
Mong Kok, an area in Hong Kong, where demonstrators opposed the police during
the Umbrella revolution.
Joshua Wong was released on 17 June 2019
(he had completed the two months' term because he also spent some time in jail
in 2018, regarding this case, before being freed on bail).
His release coincided with the ongoing
protests against extradition bill. Upon his release, Wong criticized the
oppression of protesters by the Hong Kong police, and the extradition draft law
as pro-Beijing and called for the Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam to
resign.
Wong did not take part with the
protestors who forcibly broke into the Hong Kong's parliamentary Legislative
Council building on July 1, but he explained the need behind the move.
According to him, the reason behind people entering the Legislative Council is
that the council is “never democratically elected by people”.
Wong was then arrested again on 29th
August 2019 the day before a planned demonstration, which was not given city
approval.
In September Wong met with the German
Foreign Minister. The Chinese Foreign Ministry called this move “disrespectful
of China’s sovereignty and an interference in China’s internal affairs.”
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