HONG KONG: Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong was arrested on Thursday in relation to a protest at the height of the city’s pro-democracy unrest last year, his lawyer said.
The detention of the city’s most high-profile dissident is the latest in a string of arrests of government critics and comes after China imposed a sweeping new national security law on Hong Kong in late June.
He was arrested for “unlawful assembly” over a 2019 demonstration against a government ban on face masks that was imposed before the coronavirus pandemic, his lawyer said.
The 23-year-old pro-democracy figure said on Twitter he was also being held for violating the “draconian anti-mask law,” which has since been ruled unconstitutional.
Wong’s lawyer told AFP he was arrested when he reported to a police station concerning another case against him, for which he is currently on trial.
“Wong is 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,” lawyer Jonathan Man said.
The march that day came after much of the city had ground to a halt with the subway suspended and many shops and malls shuttered following a night of violence.
Hundreds of protesters, almost all masked, staged the unsanctioned demonstration through the popular shopping district of Causeway Bay, a day after the city’s leader Carrie Lam outlawed masks by invoking colonial-era emergency powers not used for half a century.
The act of resistance came after a night of widespread chaos as hardcore protesters trashed dozens of subway stations, vandalized shops with mainland China ties, built fires and blocked roads. Many chanted “No rioters, only tyranny” and other popular protest slogans.
At the time of the march, Hong Kong had already been battered by four months of increasingly violent pro-democracy protests.
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Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong arrested for 2019 ‘unlawful assembly’
Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong arrested for 2019 ‘unlawful assembly’
- The 23-year-old pro-democracy figure said on Twitter he was being held for violating the “draconian anti-mask law”
Mexico and El Salvador make big cocaine seizures at sea as US continues lethal strikes
MEXICO CITY: The navies of El Salvador and Mexico announced drug seizures in the Pacific Ocean this week of more than 10 tons of cocaine, in contrast to deadly strikes by the US government that just this week left 11 people dead on three boats suspected of carrying drugs in Latin American waters.
The latest announcement came Thursday, when Mexico said it had seized nearly four tons of suspected drugs and detained three people from a semisubmersible craft, 250 nautical miles (463 kilometers) south of the port of Manzanillo.
Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch said via X that the seizure from the sleek, low-riding boat with three visible motors brought the weekly total to nearly 10 tons, but he did not provide detail on the other seizures.
Mexican authorities said the seizure was made with intelligence shared US Northern Command and the US Joint Interagency Task Force South.
On Sunday, El Salvador’s navy announced the largest drug seizure in the country’s history of 6.6 tons of cocaine. The navy had intercepted a 180-foot boat registered to Tanzania, 380 miles (611 kilometers) southwest of the coast. Navy divers found 330 packages of cocaine hidden in the boat’s ballast tanks. Ten men were arrested from Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama and Ecuador.
On Thursday, Salvadoran authorities gave access to the seized ship FMS Eagle, which had just arrived in the port of La Union. More than 200 wrapped bundles were lined up on the deck.
The Trump administration has pressured Mexico to make more drug seizures over the past year. The trafficking of drugs like fentanyl was the president’s justification for tariffs on Mexican imports.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded with a more aggressive stance toward drug cartels than her predecessor, that has included sending dozens of drug trafficking prisoners to the United States for prosecution.
Sheinbaum has also expressed her disagreement with strikes by the US military in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean against boats suspected of carrying drugs.
At least 145 people have been killed in those strikes since the US government began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” last September.
The US strikes this week included two vessels carrying four people each in the eastern Pacific Ocean and another boat in the Caribbean carrying three people. The administration provided images of the boats being destroyed, but not evidence they were carrying drugs.
The latest announcement came Thursday, when Mexico said it had seized nearly four tons of suspected drugs and detained three people from a semisubmersible craft, 250 nautical miles (463 kilometers) south of the port of Manzanillo.
Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch said via X that the seizure from the sleek, low-riding boat with three visible motors brought the weekly total to nearly 10 tons, but he did not provide detail on the other seizures.
Mexican authorities said the seizure was made with intelligence shared US Northern Command and the US Joint Interagency Task Force South.
On Sunday, El Salvador’s navy announced the largest drug seizure in the country’s history of 6.6 tons of cocaine. The navy had intercepted a 180-foot boat registered to Tanzania, 380 miles (611 kilometers) southwest of the coast. Navy divers found 330 packages of cocaine hidden in the boat’s ballast tanks. Ten men were arrested from Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama and Ecuador.
On Thursday, Salvadoran authorities gave access to the seized ship FMS Eagle, which had just arrived in the port of La Union. More than 200 wrapped bundles were lined up on the deck.
The Trump administration has pressured Mexico to make more drug seizures over the past year. The trafficking of drugs like fentanyl was the president’s justification for tariffs on Mexican imports.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded with a more aggressive stance toward drug cartels than her predecessor, that has included sending dozens of drug trafficking prisoners to the United States for prosecution.
Sheinbaum has also expressed her disagreement with strikes by the US military in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean against boats suspected of carrying drugs.
At least 145 people have been killed in those strikes since the US government began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” last September.
The US strikes this week included two vessels carrying four people each in the eastern Pacific Ocean and another boat in the Caribbean carrying three people. The administration provided images of the boats being destroyed, but not evidence they were carrying drugs.
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