Hong Kong's fight for freedom

China can silence me. But it can’t silence Hong Kong’s movement.

By Joshua Wong

'It is a war here now.' In Hong Kong, what began as peaceful protests has become a de facto war about the future of democracy. 

This week I was deprived of the right to participate in Hong Kong’s political system.
On Tuesday, Hong Kong authorities barred me from running in local elections for district council. 

I was the only candidate barred. 

Laura Aron, the officer who made the decision, claimed that my nomination was invalid largely because of my affiliation with Demosisto, a pro-democracy party that I helped co-found. 

She said she did not believe I would uphold Hong Kong’s Basic Law.
In reality, the decision to target me was clearly politically driven, based on my role championing democratic rights in Hong Kong and engaging with the issue at an international level. 

This is nothing short of political screening and censorship.
In mid-October, I received two letters from Dorothy Ma, an officer who was screening my candidacy, asking me to “clarify” my political views. 

Though I had no desire to play along with attempts at censorship, I responded explaining my position and noting that authorities should not screen candidates. 

I did not hear back from Ma for a week. 

Then, when I finally visited Ma’s office, I was told she was on leave due to sickness and was being replaced by Aron. 

The replacement process lacked transparency and did not follow the normal practice of appointing an officer who worked under Ma or was from a neighboring district. 

Soon after, Aron announced the decision to bar me.
When I first decided to run for the district council position, I understood that Beijing might decide to thwart my candidacy. 

The decision, and the suspicious way it was made, exposes to the world just how much Hong Kong is already under Beijing’s authoritarian grip.
This is not the first time Hong Kong authorities have infringed on my political rights and those of my fellow activists. 

I myself have been placed in jail three times for my activism. 

After spending several months in prison this year for my role in the Umbrella Movement, I was released in June, but was arrested again in August alongside my colleague Agnes Chow for participating in the protests. 

Previously, the Hong Kong government disqualified six elected, pro-democracy legislators between 2016 and 2017.
This most recent outrage shows that Chinese and Hong Kong authorities have not learned from protests. 

The protesters are calling for Beijing to respect its own promise to allow Hong Kong a democratic system until 2047, under the “one country, two systems” policy. 

This was a chance for Hong Kong’s government to show it had heard the cries of Hong Kong’s young generation and to bring a youth voice into the district council.
But Beijing is not even willing to allow Hong Kong a short window of freedom. 

Along with recent crackdowns against demonstrators on the streets, this highlights once again the importance of the protesters’ five demands for the Hong Kong government: to fully withdraw the controversial extradition bill that triggered the protests; establish a commission to look into police brutality; retract the description of protesters as “rioters;” provide amnesty to those arrested in the protests; and commit to universal suffrage for electing the chief executive and entire Legislative Council until 2047.
This is a moment when the international community must speak up. 

In the United States, the House just passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. 

After learning of the news of my barring, several senators have called for its swift passage in the Senate, too. 

This is crucial. 

Three senators have also introduced the Hong Kong Be Water Act, which would sanction government officials responsible for cracking down on freedom of expression in Hong Kong. 

These actions would signal to Beijing that it should loosen its grip or face international pressure.
My candidacy may have been barred. 

But our movement continues — and this has only catalyzed more anger and frustration among young Hong Kongers hoping for change. 

My friend and colleague Kelvin Lam has bravely decided to run in my place. 

Angus Wong and Tiffany Yuen — who were staffers under Nathan Law, a lawmaker disqualified in 2017 at Beijing’s behest — are also running for office. 

I will spend the next few weeks campaigning for them, and will continue to push for human rights in Hong Kong going forward.
And on Nov. 24, Hong Kongers must vote to have their voices heard. 

The election is a referendum on Beijing’s actions, and an opportunity to show the strength of our will and stand up for our rights. 

Beijing can bar me from running, but I refuse to be silenced. 

Democracy begins on the ground — and China cannot silence us all.

Hong Kong Bars Joshua Wong, a Prominent Activist, From Seeking Election

Mr. Wong, a leader of the 2014 Umbrella Movement, had planned to run for a district council position amid widespread public anger with the government.
By Austin Ramzy and Elaine Yu

The democracy activist Joshua Wong speaking outside the Legislative Council building in Hong Kong on Tuesday, after being barred from running in district council elections next month.

HONG KONG — The Hong Kong authorities on Tuesday barred Joshua Wong, a prominent democracy activist, from running in district council elections next month, a blow to the protest movement’s efforts to convert deep anger toward the authorities into electoral gains.
The government cited statements by Mr. Wong’s political organization that the future of Hong Kong should be determined by its people, and independence is a possible option. 

An official said those statements were incompatible with the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, which states that the semiautonomous city is part of China.
“The candidate cannot possibly comply with the requirements of the relevant electoral laws, since advocating or promoting ‘self-determination’ is contrary to the content of the declaration that the law requires a candidate to make to uphold the Basic Law and pledge allegiance” to Hong Kong, the government said in a statement.
Mr. Wong said the decision showed that China’s central government was manipulating the election, which is expected to be a key test of public sentiment about the protest movement.
In a news conference outside the Hong Kong government headquarters, he called the decision to bar him “a political order that Beijing has handed down.”
Earlier he said that the official who made the decision had been relegated to a role as the “thought police.”
The district council elections, which will be held on Nov. 24, are usually focused on local issues such as bus stops and neighborhood beautification. 

But the race is taking on a broader political significance this year. 

Whichever side wins the most seats will control 117 votes in the 1,200-member election committee that chooses the next chief executive, Hong Kong’s top government position.
The pro-democracy camp’s fears of even wider prohibitions on their candidates seeking office have not been realized, as Mr. Wong will most likely be the only candidate barred from the district council race.
He said Tuesday that he hoped voters would support another candidate, Kelvin Lam, who had registered to run in the event of Mr. Wong’s disqualification.
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.
The current protest movement began as a fight over a now-withdrawn extradition bill and has expanded its demands to include an investigation into use of force by the police and direct elections for the chief executive and the entire Legislative Council.
Unlike 2014, there are no widely known protest leaders. 

But Mr. Wong has remained a prominent participant and has been regularly attacked in the state-run Chinese media. 

In August, he and Agnes Chow, another 2014 protest leader who belongs to the same political group, Demosisto, were arrested on unauthorized assembly charges for a June 21 protest, when thousands of protesters surrounded police headquarters.
Ms. Chow was disqualified from running for the Legislative Council last year over similar questions of support for self-determination, including an option for independence. 

She won an appeal last month, with a judge ruling that she had insufficient opportunity to respond to the grounds for disqualification.
Ms. Chow said that ruling was a “Pyrrhic victory,” because it still upheld the ability of officials to disqualify candidates based on their political beliefs.
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.
“My position is that any decision on Hong Kong’s future should be carried out within the constitutional framework of ‘one country, two systems,’” he wrote. 

“Supporting democratic self-determination does not mean supporting Hong Kong’s independence from the central government of the People’s Republic of China.”
He added that comments two weeks ago by Chinese dictator Xi Jinping that any effort to divide the country would end in failure showed the futility of upholding such a position.
When Mr. Xi “threatened in strong terms that ‘anyone attempting to split China in any part of the country will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones,’ I believe that in reality Hong Kong independence cannot become an acceptable option,” Mr. Wong wrote.
Ms. Aron wrote in her decision that by referring to Mr. Xi’s comments, Mr. Wong suggested that “both Demosisto and he were pressed into saying that they have given up the notion as a compromise, instead of a genuine intention.”