Hong Kong democracy campaigner Joshua Wong returned home Wednesday after being deported from junta-run Thailand, where he was due at events commemorating a massacre of student activists. Supporters are blaming China for his detention.
The bespectacled Wong, 19, famed for his galvanising role in the city’s 2014 pro-democracy “umbrella movement”, was held upon arrival at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport.
“At around 1 am Hong Kong time, I arrived in Bangkok airport. The police and immigration department officials came and held my passport immediately,” an exhausted Wong, who flew back Wednesday afternoon, told reporters.
Wong said he was forced into a cell in Bangkok airport police station for at least 12 hours, with Thai authorities refusing to let him contact family or lawyers.
“When I asked them what is the reason for detaining me, they just said that we would not give you any explanation and you had been blacklisted,” he said.
Political party Demosisto, co-founded by Wong this year, said it “strongly condemns the Thai government for unreasonably limiting Wong’s freedom and right to entry”.
Speculation that Thailand’s military government was acting under pressure from regional superpower China — a key ally who has lavished investment and diplomatic support on the government, lacking international friends following its 2014 coup.
Thai student activist Netiwit Chotipatpaisal who invited Wong to speak in Thailand said police had told him of a “written letter from the Chinese government to the Thai government concerning this person”.
An airport immigration official confirmed there had been an “order” to detain Wong but declined to say who issued it.
But junta spokesman Lietenant General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said, “There had been no instruction or order given, pertaining to Wong.”
“Wong had been active in resistance movements against other foreign governments, and if such actions were taken within Thailand, they could eventually affect Thailand’s relations with other nations,” the spokesman added.
Netiwit later led a few dozen students wielding umbrellas — in a nod to Wong’s movement in Hong Kong — in a protest at a Bangkok campus, shouting “Joshua Wong has the right to be here”.
Wong has been a perennial thorn in Beijing’s side since emerging as an unlikely leader of protests against Chinese political domination of the city.
Last year he was similarly barred from entering Malaysia, where officials sent him back to
Hong Kong, citing fears that his planned talks would damage ties with Beijing.
The Thai military has also busily suppressed its own student pro-democracy protests since its 2014 power grab.
