A number of Hong Kong protest leaders were arrested Friday morning, according to pro-democracy group Demosistō, including its 22-year-old leader, Joshua Wong. Wong was seized at about 7:30 Friday morning at a subway stop then "suddenly pushed into a private car on the street" and taken to Hong Kong police headquarters, Demosistō said. Another prominent Demosistō activist, Agnes Chow, was arrested at her house. A third protest leader, Andy Chan, was arrested as he tried to board a plane at Hong Kong International Airport, on charges of rioting and assaulting a police officer. Chan is founder of the banned pro-independence Hong Kong National Party.
The arrests, part of a widening crackdown on protests that have roiled Hong Kong for two months, precede a major protest march on Saturday to mark the five-year anniversary of Beijing ruling out universal suffrage, sparking the 2014 Umbrella Movement; authorities have refused to issue a permit for Saturday's march. Wong and Chow have both been arrested since the umbrella protests, which they helped lead — Wong was released from jail most recently in June — and the current protest moment is deliberately leaderless, relying on social media to organize protests.
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