Wong first appeared in public in 2011 at the age of 14, taking a bold stance against the Moral and National Education (MNE) curriculum proposed by then-Chief Executive CY Leung.[1] With passion and determination, he founded Scholarism, rallying like-minded student individuals and ultimately pursuing the government to abandon the pro-CCP school program. [2]

On Sep. 22, 2014, Scholarism partnered with the Hong Kong Federation of Students to initiate a citywide class boycott in Hong Kong, advocating for democratic reforms. This led to the onset of the 79-day-long Umbrella Movement on Sep. 28, a series of sit-in street protests, marked by police deploying tear gas on Harcourt Road. [3] On Aug. 17, 2017, Wong and two other activists faced 6-8 month sentences for unlawful assembly, disqualifying them from public office for the subsequent five years. [4] Owing to his pivotal role in these events, Wong was named one of Time's 25 most influential teens of 2014. [5]

In April 2016, after the dissolution of Scholarism, Joshua Wong co-founded the political party, Demosistō. He intended to participate in the 2016 Legislative Council election, but was deemed ineligible due to being below the required age of 21. [6] Wong's commitment to peaceful political reform, anchored in the Sino-British Joint Declaration's tenets, led to his Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 2018. [7]

During the 2019 anti-extradition bill protests, Wong secured a nomination through the democratic primaries and announced his intention to run in the election on July 20, 2020, following his poll-topping endorsement by 31,398 voters. [8] Yet, the government invalidated his nomination. On Aug. 6, 2020, Wong was arrested and sentenced to 10 months for participating in an unauthorized assembly in June 2020 for commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. [9] On Jan. 7, 2021, while still incarcerated, Wong was arrested again over an alleged violation of the National Security Law. This occurred just a day after the police arrested numerous former lawmakers and opposition figures under the law's provision. The group was accused of organizing and participating in the primaries. [10]

Photo: Joshua Wong Facebook