Former Occupy student leaders Joshua Wong, Nathan Law in bid for Hong Kong opposition camp’s endorsement to run in Legislative Council elections
- City’s constitutional affairs minister also drops biggest hint yet that candidates who oppose national security law could be banned from Legco race
- Wong claims he could face punishment beyond just being barred from elections, if new legislation kicks in
Former Occupy student leaders Joshua Wong Chi-fung and Nathan Law Kwun-chung have thrown their hats into the ring for the opposition camp’s primaries in the lead-up to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council elections, despite facing disqualification under the impending national security law.
Announcing his bid to seek the camp’s endorsement for a Kowloon East seat on Friday, Wong warned he could be slapped with harsher penalties over his political stance, should the legislation being tailor-made by Beijing come into effect.
“With the threat from Beijing, the national security law is not only a matter of whether I will be disqualified. It is about the risk that I may be extradited to [mainland] China to face unfair trial and locked up in prison,” Wong, 23, said, adding that he hoped the results of the primaries would quantify public opposition to the new law.
Wong, a poster boy for Hong Kong’s movement for greater democracy, is competing with dozens of other hopefuls for the bloc’s endorsement in the September polls.
The national security law is aimed at preventing, stopping and punishing secession, subversion of state power, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. Opposition politicians and legal scholars have warned it could be used to suppress dissent and erode freedoms in Hong Kong.
