Joshua Wong, once a rising political star in Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, has been sentenced again under Beijing's national security law HONG KONG -- Some 15 years ago, then-high school student Joshua Wong was a rising political star in Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement. Now 30, he has been sentenced for the second time under a Beijing-imposed national security law that effectively crushed the movement he once championed. Critics say Wong’s imprisonment reflects the authorities’ determination to keep prominent dissidents behind bars.
But Beijing views him as an anti-China figure supporting Hong Kong independence. Here is what to know about the activist. Wong became a household name in the city as a teenage activist in 2012 when he and his now-dissolved group, Scholarism, protested against the introduction of national education in schools.
Thousands of people gathered outside the government headquarters, some launching hunger strikes. Wong, then 15, already spoke like an experienced politician. Louis Lee, a former Scholarism member, recalled sleeping on the streets for days as a high school student during their protests, fearing that their demonstrations might end like the deadly crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square student-led movement in Beijing, which involved hunger strikes.
But the Hong Kong government eventually shelved its plans, and Lee felt their efforts made things a little better. Lee described Wong as a demanding leader who kept a close eye on the group’s work. He still remembers Wong’s phone number because Wong had called him too often.
Wong was a poster boy of the 2014 Umbrella Movement, in which protesters used umbrellas to fend off police pepper spray. During the protests, also known as Occupy Central, demonstrators occupied major thoroughfares for 79 days in an ultimately unsuccessful push for direct election for the city’s leader. Scholar Chan Kin-man, a leader of the 2014 movement, had mixed feelings about Wong back then.
Although he wasn’t a key decision-maker in the movement, Wong’s speeches stirred crowds with a political energy rare for his age, and his activism was viewed as “David taking on Goliath,” Chan said. Chan also felt Wong acted on his beliefs, though sometimes without telling others in advance. Wong stormed into a fenced-off forecourt in front of government headquarters days before the planned start of the Occupy protest, without first informing Chan.
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