Hong Kong Court Sentences Activist Joshua Wong to 10 Years in Prison

Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner Joshua Wong received a ten-year prison sentence on Thursday after pleading guilty to conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the city national security law.

A high court judge ruled that Wong committed an offense of a grave nature by working with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others to urge foreign governments and international organizations to impose sanctions and blockades against mainland China and Hong Kong. Wong, who turned thirty last month, rose to prominence as a teenage leader of the 2014 Umbrella Movement and co-founded the now-disbanded political group Demosisto.

Having already spent nearly six years behind bars following his arrest in 2020 during a government crackdown on pro-democracy protests, Wong was due for release in January before facing the latest national security charges. The judge ordered that two months and two days of the ten-year term run concurrently with his ongoing subversion sentence, extending his expected imprisonment until 2036.

Steve Li, chief superintendent of the National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police Force, welcomed the sentence outside the High Court as a proper reflection of the offense. Nathan Law criticized the ruling in a statement regarding his fellow activist, while the government of Taiwan condemned the imprisonment.