Ousted pro-democracy legislator “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung was stabbed as he protested outside Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong on Thursday, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

An assailant attacked Leung with a sharp object, causing a gash by his waist, a Hong Kong police spokesman confirmed. Leung was subsequently taken to a nearby hospital for treatment and later discharged. A post on Leung’s Facebook account stated he was stabbed with the bit of a pneumatic drill.

“I was doing an interview with a member of the foreign press, when I felt I was stabbed from behind and felt pain,” Leung said. “I saw [the assailant] holding a metal object, and he was shouting abuse at me, saying I was ‘creating trouble.’”

Police arrested an 81-year-old man at the scene in connection with the attack, who reportedly shouted while being arrested, “[Leung] is a bad guy, why meddle with the liaison office? I’m Chinese!”

The assailant said he was “trying to help the police to kill Leung,” according to Leung’s political party, the League of Social Democrats.

Before the attack, Leung was protesting statements the Hong Kong Liaison Office, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) representative facility in Hong Kong, made last week attacking opposition lawmaker Dennis Kwok. The office, along with its sister agency, the Hong Kong Macau Affairs Office, had accused Kwok of violating his oath of office by allowing delays in choosing a new head of the Legislative Council’s House Committee.

“We were some distance from [the attack] at the time, but the man was holding a metal object to stab Long Hair [Leung]. There’s a mark and a wound, although it’s not serious,” Leung’s party chairman Raphael Wong Ho-ming said after the attack.

“It’s most regretful. The [Hong Kong] Liaison Office kept saying there are rioters, but there’s an attack right outside the liaison office, will they condemn these violence too?” Wong Ho-ming asked. He referred to the Hong Kong Liaison Office’s repeated condemnations of pro-democracy protesters last year.

Last June, pro-democracy protests began in Hong Kong over a now-scrapped extradition bill. The protests evolved into large-scale demonstrations over several months, attracting millions of people with demands that the Communist Party respect Hong Kong’s autonomy. The protests continued unabated until the Chinese coronavirus pandemic interrupted them.