Sunday, September 28, 2014

Hong Kong's 17-Year-Old 'Extremist' Student Leader Arrested During Massive Democracy Protest

17-year-old Joshua Wong, a student protester and the leader of the "Scholarism" movement in Hong Kong, has reportedly been arrested by police during a student protest.

Wong was arrested along with four other demonstrators at Hong Kong government headquarters and has been accused of police assault, Yvonne Leung Lai-kwok, president of the University of Hong Kong's students' union, told South China Morning Post.

The incident comes at the end of weeklong student boycott protesting China's rejection of full universal suffrage in the city, a development that had long been promised.
More than 5,000 high school and university students in Hong Kong have been protesting illegally outside of Hong Kong government headquarters in Tamar Park for the last five days. This evening, at least 100 of those students broke into Civic Square, a public space that has been sealed off for months.
After the break-in, the police moved in with pepper spray to disband the protest and arrest those who broke into the area.
When Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, it was agreed that the former colony would coexist with China under the principle of "one country, two systems," meaning that Hong Kong would have a high degree of autonomy and eventually achieve genuine democracy. Those promises have never materialized, much to the chagrin of Hong Kong residents.

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