Mr. Wong, 23, grew to international prominence as a student leader during the 2014 Umbrella Movement, when protesters occupied streets for weeks to push for freer elections. He was sentenced to short prison terms twice over the 2014 protests, and was still in custody in June when the current protest movement began. But Mr. Wong has remained a prominent participant and has been regularly attacked in the state-run Chinese media. Mr. Wong had previously publicly shared his response to the official who disqualified him, Laura Aron, on Facebook on Saturday, where he argued that his advocacy remains within the bounds of the city’s Constitution. “Supporting democratic self-determination does not mean supporting Hong Kong’s independence from the central government of the People’s Republic of China.”

Source: International New York Times October 29, 2019 04:07 UTC