Hong Kong’s Protest Movement Is Running Out of Cash

  • Donations fall for main group providing legal assistance
  • Many young protesters need help making bail if arrested
Riot police arrest demonstrators during a protest on May 27.Photographer: Lam Yik/Bloomberg
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At the height of last year’s protests in Hong Kong, Daniel Wong Kwok-tung regularly received late-night requests from a mysterious group known as Spark Alliance to provide legal assistance to demonstrators rounded up in street battles with police.

The 70-year-old lawyer was among several that Spark Alliance would tap to organize a defense, essentially a back-room operation that kept the demonstrations going for months despite thousands of arrests of young people -- many of whom couldn’t afford to make bail.