Police have arrested two student leaders on suspicion of promoting and inciting others to take part in unauthorised events marking Hong Kong’s second anniversary of the 2019 anti-government protests. Opposition activists Wong Yat-chin, 20, and Wong Yuen-lam, 19, the convenor and spokeswoman respectively for Student Politicism, were detained on Friday and accused of inciting others to join unlawful assemblies, as well as advertising or publicising illegal gatherings, according to a police source. Superintendent Wilson Tam Wai-shun, of the Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau, said on Friday evening that the pair, who were arrested in Tung Chung and Lai Chi Kok, had allegedly posted messages on various platforms to invite other people to go to gatherings at Mong Kok and Causeway Bay on Saturday to mark the second anniversary of the protests. Tam said the duo had also incited others to use violence in their protests, including throwing petrol bombs. He added that officers were investigating and further arrests were possible. “Police so far have not received any applications for assemblies or processions for Saturday, but it was very irresponsible that the arrested had advertised or publicised an unauthorised event, or made participants criminally liable,” Tam said. Covid-19 rules outlaw the gathering in public of groups of more than four people. Police sources earlier told the Post they were planning to deploy more than 2,000 officers across the city on Saturday after activists appealed online for people to come together on June 12, a key date of the 2019 protests when tens of thousands descended on the legislature to block the second reading of the government’s now-withdrawn extradition bill . Student Politicism on Wednesday posted a message on its social media account urging people to “please let us gather ‘like water’ again in Mong Kok, a place that is filled with blood, sweat and courage”. Hong Kong protests: two men who took part in demonstration aimed at breaking PolyU siege plead guilty to rioting The group said while its street booths would operate from 7pm that night, full details of their arrangements would not be announced. A post on Wong’s personal Facebook page said he had been detained at Tung Chung Police Station and he was sorry he would not be able to show up for the event on Saturday. Wong’s arrest on Friday morning was his second this month. He was held under the Public Order Ordinance on June 4 for giving speeches in breach of the peace. The student group had set up street booths in Mong Kok, calling on members of the public to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing. He was released the next day. On June 9, 2019, hours after an estimated 1 million people took to the street to oppose the extradition bill, the city’s government announced that scrutiny of the legislation would resume on June 12. The meeting was later postponed, but violent clashes still broke out between protesters and police outside the Legislative Council complex in Admiralty. Some radical protesters stormed the complex, others hurled bricks and iron bars at police, who in response initially defended themselves with batons and pepper spray but eventually resorted to firing tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters. The turmoil continued until midnight. Hong Kong protests: police watchdog reviews six days that changed the course of the unrest The bill, which would have allowed the transfer of fugitives to jurisdictions such as mainland China – with which Hong Kong has no extradition deal – was eventually shelved in September 2019. But the social unrest lasted until the coronavirus crisis broke out in early 2020. Last month, the police chief said the force had arrested 10,250 people in connection with anti-government protests in the 20 months since mid-2019. Of the 2,500 who were prosecuted, 1,200 had completed judicial procedures with about 80 per cent of them bearing legal consequences, while 295 people were jailed.