Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong calls for independent prison body after complaint dismissed

21-year-old accuses prison officials of ‘operating in black box’ after they toss out his grievance, and demands greater transparency

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Joshua Wong Chi-fung . Photo: Winson Wong

Published: 7:27pm, 6 Jul 2018Updated: 11:16pm, 6 Jul 2018

Occupy protest leader Joshua Wong Chi-fung revealed on Friday that his formal complaint against prison officials was dismissed, as he called for the creation of an independent council to review and monitor the city’s prisons and its detention and rehabilitation centres.

The 21-year-old pro-democracy activist said the Correctional Services Department’s (CSD) complaint system was “like operating in a black box”.

The department received more than 500 complaints from inmates from 2013 to last year, but only eight, or 1.5 per cent, were proved valid, said lawmaker and social worker Shiu Ka-chun, who accompanied Wong at a press conference.

“From my complaints, it showed that if the officers involved said it did not happen, then it did not happen and all the allegations were dismissed. That was how the complaints unit of the department worked,” he said.

Wong, along with fellow activists Nathan Law Kwun-chung and Alex Chow Yong-kang, was convicted in 2016 over his role in a 2014 protest that led to a 79-day occupation of major roads to demand greater democracy.

The three were originally given non-custodial sentences. But after a review sought by the government, the appeal court found those terms inadequate and sentenced them to jail in August last year.

Wong and Law were released on bail in October pending appeal. Chow was released on bail in November.