HONG KONG — Activist Joshua Wong, who became the global face of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in jail on a charge of collusion with foreign entities under the city's national security law.
Wong, now 30, was accused of conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others to ask foreign countries, bodies, or individuals outside China to impose sanctions or blockades, or engage in other hostile activities against the government. He pleaded guilty to the charge in September.
"The punishment must fit the gravity of the crime," High Court Judge William Tam told a packed courtroom while delivering a sentence shorter than the maximum penalty of life in jail. The judge said Wong's offense was of a grave nature and rejected that his role was limited. The court adopted thirteen years' imprisonment as a starting point and, taking account of Wong's early guilty plea, reduced the term to ten years.
Wong was among a group of young people whose protest efforts have effectively been outlawed by a sweeping national security law Beijing imposed on the Asian financial hub in 2020, after sometimes violent demonstrations. The offenses took place between July 1 and November 23, 2020, a time when Hong Kong was facing a "very high risk" to national security and the rule of law.
Wong has been in detention since November 2020, when he pleaded guilty to inciting and organizing an unauthorized anti-government assembly during protests that roiled the Asian financial hub in 2019. He is already serving a four-year, eight-month prison term for the city's biggest national security case linked to an unofficial primary. Two months of the new sentence will run concurrently with his current sentence, and he faces imprisonment until late 2036, when he will be 40.
Human Rights Watch said the Hong Kong High Court sentenced Wong on "baseless national security charges," while Amnesty International called the sentence a grim reminder of the city's disdain for human rights. The case has drawn renewed scrutiny of Hong Kong's national security prosecutions, which critics say reflect the crackdown on the city's once-thriving pro-democracy movement — a movement whose calls for foreign sanctions put it directly at odds with Beijing and with U.S. policy debates over China.
