Shawdesh Desk: Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong was arrested on Friday on suspicion of organising illegal protests as authorities clampdown on a wave of unrest that has plunged the city into its biggest political crisis in more than two decades.

Wong, the icon of pro-democracy demonstrations five years ago that foreshadowed the latest turbulence, is the highest-profile arrest since protests escalated in mid-June over fears Beijing was exerting greater control over the city.

Two other prominent activists, Andy Chan and Agnes Chow, have also been detained.

The bespectacled Wong, who was 17 when he became the face of the student-led Umbrella Movement, has not been a prominent figure in current protests which have no identifiable leaders. He was released from jail in June after serving a five-week term for contempt of court.

‘He was suddenly pushed into a private car on the street,’ Wong’s political party Demosisto, which advocates for greater democracy in Hong Kong, said on its official Twitter account.

‘He has now been escorted to the police headquarters in Wan Chai,’ it said. Demosisto’s lawyers were working on the case, it said.

Police said Wong and Chow, both 22, were arrested on Friday on suspicion of ‘organising unorganised assembly’ and ‘knowingly participating in unauthorised assembly’.

China has accused foreign powers, particularly the United States and Britain, of fomenting the demonstrations in the former British colony and warned against foreign governments interfering in the city’s protests.

A photograph in a pro-Beijing newspaper earlier this month of Wong meeting a US consular official triggered a war of words between Washington and Beijing.

US State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus called China a ‘thuggish regime’ for disclosing photographs and personal details of the diplomat.

Nearly 900 people have been arrested since the demonstrations began with frequent clashes between protesters and police, who have at times fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse activists.

China brought fresh troops into Hong Kong on Thursday in what it described as a routine rotation of its garrison there.

The 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests are a series of demonstrations in Hong Kong which began with the goal of withdrawing the extradition bill proposed by the HK government.

If enacted, the bill would allow local authorities to detain and extradite people who are wanted in territories that Hong Kong does not have extradition agreements with, including mainland China and Taiwan

The demonstrations against the bill began in March and April, and then escalated in June.