Hong Kong’s Joshua Wong arrested for 2019 ‘illegal assembly’

Police in Hong Kong arrested on Thursday prominent democracy activist Joshua Wong for participating in an unauthorised assembly in October 2019 and violating the city’s anti-mask law, according to a series of posts on his Twitter account. He was freed on bail three hours later Wong’s latest arrest adds to several unlawful assembly charges or suspected offences he and other activists are facing related to last year’s pro-democracy protests, which prompted Beijing to impose a sweeping national security law on June 30. In a series of Twitter posts, the 23-year-old said he was taken into custody when he reported to a police station. He called his brief arrest “a notorious abuse to the criminal justice system” and said there was “nothing to celebrate on bizarrely prompt release”. Jonathan Man, Wong’s lawyer, told AFP news agency that the pro-democracy activist was “accused of participating in an unlawful assembly on October 5 last year, when hundreds marched to oppose an anti-mask ban the government rolled out”. The anti-mask law was introduced last year in a bid to help police identify protesters they suspected of committing crimes and it is facing a challenge in court. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong government has made face masks mandatory in most circumstances due to the coronavirus pandemic. Wong said on Twitter that he faced five years in jail and one additional year for a mask. The case will begin on September 30, he added. style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0; bottom: 0; right: 0; left: 0;">