One of the most prominent democracy activists in Hong Kong in recent years, Joshua Wong (黃之鋒), was yesterday sentenced to three months in prison over an information breach involving a police officer, a post on Wong’s Facebook account said.
The 26-year-old rose to prominence in 2014, when, as a bespectacled teenager, he emerged as a leader of student-led democracy protests in which roads in the heart of the financial center were blocked for 79 days.
In Monday’s ruling, he was sentenced for breaching a court ban on disclosing personal information about a police officer who opened fire during a protest in 2019, the post said.
Photo: Reuters
Wong attended the hearing, but did not speak, a witness in the court said.
The court did not immediately publish a written judgement, delivering only an oral sentencing. Wong’s lawyer was not immediately available for comment.
Wong galvanized international support for the former British colony’s democracy movement, meeting politicians from the US, Europe and elsewhere, and drawing the wrath of Beijing, which says he is a “black hand” of foreign forces.
Wong was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his role in the 2014 protests, known as the Umbrella movement because of the umbrellas protesters wielded to protect themselves from water cannons and tear gas.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while