REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, KUALA LUMPUR -- Hong Kong student leader Joshua Wong was Tuesday refused admission to Malaysia, where he planned to speak about the city's pro-democracy movement and the anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square massacre.
Wong was the teenage face of the "Umbrella Movement", which brought parts of Hong Kong to a standstill for more than two months late last year with mass rallies calling for fully free leadership elections.
"This morning we stopped Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong from entering Penang. We subsequently deported him back to Hong Kong on the same Dragonair flight," said an immigration official at Penang airport on condition of anonymity.
The official declined to say why Wong was denied entry.
"Malaysian government is not letting me enter their border. Taking my original flight back to Hong Kong," Wong had said earlier on his Twitter account.
In a separate Tweet he added that a Malaysian customs officer had said the refusal was due to a "government order". Wong did not elaborate.
He was due to arrive back in Hong Kong in the late afternoon.
Scholarism, the student protest group which Wong founded, posted a statement on its Facebook page saying he had been invited to visit by "Malaysian activists".
"Local personnel temporarily took away his passport for inspection when he arrived... and later refused his entry and asked him to be returned to Hong Kong with no reason," it said.
Wong, 18, said he had been invited to share his "experience and views on the Umbrella Movement and the June 4 incident", the South China Morning Post reported.
His visit came less than two weeks before the 26th anniversary on June 4 of the Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing.
Hong Kong commemorates the anniversary each year with a candlelit vigil attended by thousands in Victoria Park.
A spokesman for Hong Kong's immigration department said the entry of its residents to other countries was "out of the control of the Hong Kong government".
Hong Kong authorities have not imposed any travel restrictions on Wong.
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