Banned HK Gamer Has No Regrets Over Online Protest

A top online gamer from Hong Kong who was expelled from an international tournament after showing support for the city's protest movement said on Tuesday he has no regrets.

Ng Wai-chung, who represents the Asia-Pacific region under the name Blitzchung, had just won a crucial match at the Hearthstone Grandmasters tournament when he exclaimed in Putonghua: "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times" during a live-streamed interview with hosts in Taipei.

The 21-year-old university student was wearing goggles and a breathing mask, and pulled down the latter to shout his message.

The online stream was cut off mid-interview shortly afterwards and the video has since been taken down.

Hearthstone is a hugely popular online card game in which two opponents take turns to deploy different characters with different abilities to try to defeat each other.

Ng said he was unsurprised at being kicked out of the competition, but said: "I don't regret saying that stuff. And even now, I don't regret it at all."

He said he had been distracted by the sometimes-violent unrest in his home city over the past four months. "Quite a number of large-scale protests overlapped the competition time. Sometimes, I couldn't focus on the competition."

The makers of Hearthstone, Blizzard Entertainment, wrote in a statement that Ng had broken their rules and said he will not receive any prize money - US$10,000 according to Ng - and will be banned from Hearthstone eSports for a year. (AFP)