Joshua Wong, face of Hong Kong's democracy movement, jailed for 10 more years
Joshua Wong, the 30-year-old activist who became the face of Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests, was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in jail for colluding with foreign forces under the city's national security law. Wong, who has already spent six years in prison and was due to be freed in January, pleaded guilty in September.
Joshua Wong, once the most recognisable face of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in prison for colluding with foreign forces under the national security law Beijing imposed on the city in 2020.
Wong, who turned 30 last month, is already serving a sentence for subversion and was due to be released in January. The judge ruled that two months and two days of the new term will run concurrently with his current sentence, meaning he faces roughly another decade behind bars. He had pleaded guilty to the new charges in September.
Prosecutors said Wong conspired with other campaigners, including self-exiled activist Nathan Law, to lobby for foreign sanctions and blockades against Beijing between July and late November 2020. Wong and Law co-founded Demosisto, a pro-democracy party that has since been disbanded.
Human Rights Watch called the ruling "cruel and unjust", accusing the Hong Kong government of stacking charges against influential pro-democracy leaders. Authorities say the security law is needed to maintain stability and deny that it has eroded the city's autonomy. The harshest sentence under the law so far was the 20-year term given to former media tycoon Jimmy Lai, also for collusion.
Wong rose to prominence as a teenager, co-founding the student group Scholarism at 14 and becoming a leading figure of the 2014 Umbrella Movement.