Joshua Wong, Nathan Law and Alex Chow arrive at police headquarters in Wan Chai on Thursday.Scholarism leader Joshua Wong says he was charged with taking part and inciting others to join an unlawful assembly, and for breaking into the forecourt of government headquarters in Admiralty on September 26 last year.
Wong arrived at Wan Chai police headquarters this morning with Federation of Students secretary general Nathan Law Kwun-Chung and his predecessor Alex Chow Yong-kang, who were among those who joined Wong last year.
Chow says he was charged for taking part in unlawful assembly while Law was charged for inciting others to take part.
According to Public Order Ordinance, the trio can face up to five years imprisonment for their charges. They will attend court on Wednesday, September 2.
The break-in came after students staged a class boycott for several days outside the government headquarters to protest Beijing’s stringent framework on political reform. The break in triggered the 79-day Occupy protests, which began two days later.
Speaking before entering police headquarters this morning, Wong said that “the break in was the best decision I made in the last four years.”
“‘Civic Square’ had been a place where we gathered freely to protest against the national education curriculum and the free television licence decision. We were only trying to get into that place. So this is a political prosecution,” he added.
Wong hasn’t decided whether he will plead guilty.
The student leader has posted a “court schedule” on his Facebook, which states he is due at the Eastern Court tomorrow, charged with obstructing police officers in execution of their duties when protesters burned a copy of Beijing’s white paper on Hong Kong outside the central government’s liaison office on June 11 last year. In November he will attend court for obstructing the police clearance of the Mong Kok protest camps in November 2014, for which he has been charged with contempt of court.