My flight touched down at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport without any problems, at about midnight on 5 October. I had been invited to share my experiences of Hong Kong’s umbrella movement at two universities in Bangkok and to talk about becoming a young politician.

But as I left the plane, I started to feel paranoid that officials at the immigration counter might take me away and deport me back to Hong Kong on the very same flight. A strange feeling came over me. I could see more staff than usual ahead of me. But there was nowhere else to go. When I stepped on to the bridge leading off the plane, I saw a crowd of immigration police. I knew something was wrong.

What surprised me was that, unlike when I was refused entry to Malaysia – in May 2015, this time I didn’t have to go to the counter to be taken away. This time the officials came to meet me.

They asked if I was Joshua Wong. I told them I was.

And as soon as I had acknowledged my identity, they announced the order from Thai authorities to detain me and asked me to hand over my passport. I was very nervous. I never would have expected this to happen having barely stepped off the plane.

The unfamiliar environment knocked me off balance. The last time I felt this sensation – that my heart was about to leap out from my chest – had been two years ago, in 2014, when I was arrested during the umbrella movement protests.



Had this been happening in Hong Kong, I would at least have been able to contact lawyers or the media to buy some time. But Bangkok airport was a foreign place to me, and my phone wouldn’t connect to the airport Wi-Fi. I couldn’t reach anyone for help. I had no choice but to surrender my passport.

The customs officer told me I had been blacklisted by the Thai government and would not be permitted to enter the country. After handing over my passport, I was made to follow more than 20 customs and police officers to an unknown location. My heartbeat quickened and I was filled with a feeling of helplessness. We had been walking all over the place since my arrival and the only word I had been able to understand from them was “blacklist”.

After they took me to the detention cell, I couldn’t bear it any longer. I asked which articles of their law allowed them to put a foreign citizen in a detention cell without good reason. I asked to be allowed to contact my family, or even just a local lawyer.



But my passport had been taken away, and I had been forbidden to use my phones or computers, so I could not contact anyone. They could do as they pleased. My two requests – to contact a lawyer and for them to explain the legality of their action – were both rejected with a simple “No”.



I criticised them for detaining me without any legal basis as something that was a violation of human rights and they replied: “We’ll tell you why once we have you detained.” I continued to point out that they were violating proper police procedure, but they simply replied: “You know this is Thailand, it’s like China. Not like Hong Kong!”

I repeated those words to myself.

“You know this is Thailand, it’s like China. Not like Hong Kong!”

“You know this is Thailand, it’s like China. Not like Hong Kong!”

“You know this is Thailand, it’s like China. Not like Hong Kong!”

He was right, I thought. It is like China – not like Hong Kong. After all, the Hong Kong publisher Gui Minhai was kidnapped in Thailand last year and was eventually sent to mainland China.

My discussion with the police officer ended with him making the assertion: “You know we can treat you nicely like we are now. But we can also make it hard for you. We believe you understand how far we can go.” I was fully aware of this. In fact, everyone in Hong Kong is fully aware of the bookseller scandal, which saw five local booksellers taken away to mainland China.

At about two o’clock in the morning I was put in a cell at the airport.

At first I thought the worst that could happen would be that the 20 police officers would “keep me company” in the airport waiting room before putting me on a flight back to Hong Kong.

What I never expected was that I was about to be locked up in a foreign country merely for agreeing to speak at the top university there.

Detention cells in Hong Kong are not pleasant. In Thailand they are even worse. In Hong Kong you are at least allowed to see your lawyers. Two years ago I was arrested in Hong Kong for storming the Civic Square two days before the umbrella movement erupted and I was able to seek release by filing a habeas corpus petition in court.

In Thailand detention centres are far more unpleasant. The lack of hygiene and the language barrier were not even the main problems. The worst thing was being cut off from the outside world in this tightly sealed cell. You can’t see the light and you don’t know what time it is. You don’t know how long you will have to wait. But you do know that you won’t have the chance to help yourself through any legal means – because there is no rule of law.

In this 50sq ft cell, my mind was troubled; I felt terrified and uneasy. I wondered if my friends and colleagues from my political party Demosisto would be worried, seeing that I had not appeared online; I wondered what my family and girlfriend might be thinking, having heard nothing from me; I wondered if my friends from Thai student movements might be able to get me out having not seen me at the airport; I wondered how the Hong Kong government might respond to this, or if it would simply ignore it as if it never happened. I felt frightened. I wanted to cry.

Being cut off from the outside world is scary. But I told myself not to cry. No matter what happened, I should not cry. I could not let the police – the tools of the government – feel like they had defeated me. Looking at the walls of the cell, I kept thinking about when I might be able to go home. Would it be tomorrow morning? At noon? Or perhaps a day later?

It sounds crazy, but I was truly worried that the Thai government might take me off to one of its courts, under some national security article, and wait a couple of weeks before deporting me home. Or perhaps worse, they might find me guilty and keep me in jail for years. The worst that I imagined could happen – although just for an instant – was that they might deport me to mainland China, as they had done to the five Hong Kong booksellers who went missing last year.

You may think I was overreacting by thinking that I would never be able to go home. When I started having these negative thoughts, I tried to remind myself that – even in the worst-case scenario – I wouldn’t be jailed in Thailand, let alone deported to mainland China. My voice of reason told me such scenarios were far-fetched.

But you know what? When the physical conditions are so hostile, and you can’t breathe because of the repressive atmosphere around you, this kind of fear grows inside you. Because the reality was that I was detained in a foreign country, with no access to legal assistance or the media, and I was not even sure I would be permitted to return home.

My mind became so troubled that I wasn’t able to sleep. Finally I realised what “freedom from fear” actually means. This detention experience was 100 times more terrifying than the five previous times I was arrested in Hong Kong.



By noon the following day I was told I would be put on the next flight home. A huge load was lifted off my shoulders. Just before I left I was given a document from the immigration office, declaring that they had rejected my entry into the country according to Sections 19, 22 and 54 of the Immigration Act B.E. 2522.

So after China, Macau and Malaysia, there is now another territory I know I cannot enter. In fact, I still don’t understand why. I have never criticised the Thai government. I was only invited there to share my experiences of being a young man who took part in the umbrella movement. And this led to me being detained as soon as I stepped off the plane and being treated in a way that goes completely against human rights and the law. I spent almost 12 hours in detention and was deprived of my passport and of contact with others.

I am absolutely certain that my unlawful detention by the Thai authorities was motivated by their fear of youth movements around the world.

Indeed, young people right across the globe will only become more united and engaged as our collective yearning for democracy, civil liberties and other universal values strengthens. So too will our commitment to street activism. Our hopes and dreams transcend culture, language, country and political realities.



My political party and I will continue to work with civic groups in the region to chart a new path towards liberty and justice.

