Joshua Wong, the teenage face of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, said Saturday he has ended a four-day hunger strike designed to force the government into further talks on political reform. "Under the strong urging of the doctor, I have stopped the hunger strike," Wong, who had not eaten in 108 hours, said on his Facebook and Twitter feeds.
The 18-year-old said he felt "extreme physical discomfort, dizziness and weakness in the limbs". "Even if I stop the hunger strike, it doesn't mean that the Hong Kong government can ignore our demands," Wong said. Wong and two young female members of his Scholarism student group announced the "indefinite" hunger strike following one of the worst nights of violence at the demonstrations last Sunday.
Wong's latest announcement came after fellow hunger striker Isabella Lo said she would stop the hunger strike on Friday. Scholarism said the hunger strike was still ongoing after two more people joined the action. But in another blow late Saturday it, the group confirmed another hunger striker, 17-year-old Prince Wong, had been sent to the hospital late Saturday on the advice of their doctor.
News footage from TVB News showed an exhausted Wong, a secondary school student who joined the hunger strike with Joshua Wong and Lo on Monday, being stretchered onto an ambulance. Earlier television news footage showed a weak-looking Joshua Wong being wheeled around the main protest site in Admiralty in a wheelchair.