By CHRIS BUCKLEY
NOVEMBER 27, 2014
HONG KONG — Joshua Wong, a student who is the best-known face ofHong Kong’s pro-democracy protest movement, was ordered by a court on Thursday to stay away from the area where he and other demonstrators were arrested when the police cleared away their street camp. Mr. Wong said he had been hit by police officers during the tense sweep.
Mr. Wong, 18, was among the roughly 160 people arrested on Tuesday and Wednesday when many hundreds of police officers acted in coordination with court bailiffs to remove the protest camp on streets in Mong Kok, a neighborhood thronged by shoppers and tourists.
A court magistrate ordered Mr. Wong and two other prominent activists — Lester Shum, a university student leader; and Leung Kwok-hung, a radical member of the city’s Legislative Council who is best known as “Long Hair” — to stay away from parts of Mong Kok as a condition of their bail. They have been charged with obstructing the operation, and will face the court again in January.
Two months after the protest occupations started, two other parts of the city remain occupied: a small camp at Causeway Bay and a large one at Admiralty, near the city government’s headquarters. The clearance this week of Nathan Road in Mong Kok followed a court injunction ordering the opening of the major commercial artery. The neighborhood has been the site of some of the most violent clashes in the otherwise peaceful demonstrations.
After the hearing, Mr. Wong gave his own, contrary account of his arrest. He said he did not obstruct the bailiffs and police officers enforcing the court-ordered clearance, and he claimed that the police officers struck him after they pinned him to the ground.
“They held me on the ground and restricted my movements and hit me,” he told reporters outside the court. “I have scars on my neck and face, and they hit my body six or seven times, including my private parts.”
Mr. Wong is a leader of Scholarism, a group of high school and university students who have demanded democratic elections for Hong Kong’s leader, or chief executive. They and other protesters reject election plans proposed by the Chinese government for the city as a sham.
A spokesman for the police force and other Hong Kong officials have defended the clearing and have rejected the allegations that officers used excessive force. Two men were arrested after they threw eggs at Mr. Wong outside the court on Thursday.
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