Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has been sentenced to an additional 10 years in prison after being convicted of colluding with foreign entities under the city’s national security law.
The 30-year-old, who has been imprisoned since 2020, was due to be released in January 2027. He pleaded guilty to the charge in September.
High Court judge William Tam said he had initially considered a 13-year sentence, but reduced it to 10 years in recognition of Wong’s guilty plea and other mitigating factors.
“The punishment must fit the gravity of the crime,” Mr Tam told a packed courtroom on Thursday.
Wong was accused of conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others to ask foreign countries, organisations or individuals outside China to impose sanctions or blockades, or to take other hostile action against the government.
Mr Tam said the sentence was also necessary to express “the community’s abhorrence of the defendant’s scheme and acts with others to collude with foreign forces or external elements to endanger national security”.
Wong became one of the most prominent figures in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement after protests in 2019, which began over plans to allow extradition to mainland China before developing into wider demonstrations.
He regularly appeared on news channels and later pleaded guilty to inciting and organising an unauthorised anti-government assembly. He has been in prison since 2020 over his role in the protests.
International criticism of Joshua Wong sentence
The United States consulate in Hong Kong said it “strongly condemns” the additional sentence and called for Wong’s “immediate release”.
A consulate spokesperson said Wong had been “unjustly imprisoned since December 2020”, adding that his case demonstrated Beijing would go to “extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate for fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong”.
Taiwan also criticised what it called the “endless political persecution” of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists. Its top China policy body accused Beijing and the Hong Kong government of using “authoritarian tools” to fabricate charges and suppress people seeking freedom, democracy and human rights.
Human Rights Watch described the sentence as “cruel and unjust”. Elaine Pearson, the organisation’s Asia director, said young people promoting social change were “an asset for any vibrant society”, but that the Hong Kong government was putting them behind bars.
Amnesty International said Wong’s additional sentence was “another grim reminder of how Hong Kong’s National Security Law has become a tool to punish dissent”.
