Hong Kong Activist Joshua Wong Gets 10-Year Sentence Under Security Law

Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday under the territory's Beijing-imposed national security law, after a court found him guilty of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.^[1]

The sentence was handed down by Judge William Tam, who said he started from 13 years but reduced the term because Wong pleaded guilty, and ordered it to run at the same time as Wong's existing four-year, eight-month national security sentence, of which he has about two months left.^[1] Prosecutors argued that Wong's meetings with foreign politicians, including then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Marco Rubio, formed part of a coordinated lobbying effort they said amounted to collusion with foreign forces.^[1]

Wong rose to prominence as a teenager leading student rallies during the 2014 pro-democracy Umbrella Movement, and later became one of the most recognizable faces of Hong Kong's 2019 mass protests against a China extradition bill and for greater political freedoms. He has been jailed multiple times over his role in unauthorized assemblies and was already serving a national security sentence when authorities brought the foreign collusion charge that resulted in Thursday's term. The national security law, introduced by Beijing in mid-2020 after the 2019 unrest, created broadly defined offenses such as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, and has since been used to arrest dozens of opposition figures, shut down civil society groups and reshape the city's once-vibrant political scene.

Hong Kong and Beijing officials say the law has restored order and is aimed only at a small group of people who endanger national security, arguing that activities like foreign lobbying crossed a "red line" by inviting external pressure on China and the city. Rights groups, Western governments and many Hong Kong activists counter that Thursday's sentence underscores how normal political outreach and advocacy have been criminalized, warning that lengthy terms like Wong's will entrench self-censorship and further hollow out the "one country, two systems" autonomy framework that was meant to govern the city until at least 2047.

1. NPR