Thailand bars entry to teenage HK activist Joshua Wong

Thailand on Wednesday barred entry to a Hong Kong student activist who helped organize pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2014.

Bespectacled Joshua Wong, 19, was detained in Bangkok where he had been invited to speak at universities about Hong Kong's "Umbrella Movement" street protests and on setting up his political party, Demosisto.

Wong was given 80 hours of community service by a Hong Kong court in August on a charge of unlawful assembly for taking part in a sit-in at the height of the protests in the Asian financial hub.

The Thai Foreign Ministry said in a statement permission for Wong to enter Thailand "involves various factors".

Wong flew in to Bangkok just before midnight on Tuesday and arrived back in Hong Kong on Wednesday afternoon.

Wong was denied entry by Malaysia in May 2015 when he was due to give talks on democracy.

Wong was invited by the politics faculty at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University to speak on the 40th anniversary of a bloody crackdown by the Thai army on student protests.

Since Thailand's 2014 coup, the military has clamped down on dissent and banned political protests. The Thursday anniversary of the 1976 crackdown on Bangkok student protests has stirred sensitive memories.

(REUTERS)