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Hong Kong Charges Joshua Wong, Activists Over Tiananmen Vigil

The Hong Kong police charged pro-democracy activists including Joshua Wong for taking part in the Tiananmen vigil.

Hong Kong Charges Joshua Wong, Activists Over Tiananmen Vigil
Joshua Wong, second right, Agnes Chow, third right, and Ivan Lam, right, activists and former members of pro-democracy party Demosisto, leave the West Kowloon Law Courts in Hong Kong, China. (Photographer: Roy Liu/Bloomberg)

The Hong Kong police charged pro-democracy activists including Joshua Wong for taking part in a June vigil commemorating the anniversary of China’s crackdown in Tiananmen Square, the latest move in an intensifying clampdown on the city’s opposition movement.

Pro-democracy lawmaker Eddie Chu, former student leader Lester Shum and leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China -- which was formed during the Tiananmen massacre in 1989 -- were also among those charged on Thursday for “knowingly taking part in an unauthorized assembly,” Cable TV reported, citing unidentified people. They are due in court Sept. 15, it said.

Hong Kong Charges Joshua Wong, Activists Over Tiananmen Vigil

Police levied new charges on 24 people, including several who had already been charged in June with inciting the unauthorized assembly. Media tycoon and activist Jimmy Lai was among those charged in June, but wasn’t handed an additional charge on Thursday.

Some of those charged confirmed the news via their social media accounts, including Wong, who appeared in court on Wednesday on separate charges related to last year’s siege of Hong Kong’s police headquarters.

“Just 24 hours after I have left the court yesterday morning, I am now facing another charge by the government,” he wrote on Twitter. “Clearly, the regime plans to stage another crackdown on the city’s activists by all means.”

Tens of thousands of people came out peacefully for this year’s vigil on June 4, defying the first government ban on the vigil in three decades due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The government’s move is likely to fuel criticism that Beijing is trying to quash Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, following the disqualification of at least a dozen opposition candidates from now-delayed Legislative Council elections scheduled for Sept. 6.

The charges are tied to an event held before China enacted controversial national security legislation on the city at the end of June, and did not appear to be related to the new law.

But they come as Hong Kong police have ramped up enforcement of the national security law, issuing arrest warrants earlier this month for six activists who live overseas and arresting four young activists for online comments that allegedly fell afoul of the legislation.

Concerns are also rising globally about Hong Kong’s future autonomy and the state of basic freedoms in the city. Countries including the U.K., Canada and Germany have suspended their extradition treaties with Hong Kong following the adoption of the national security law, and the U.S. has moved to end the so-called special trading privileges that distinguish it from the mainland.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.