Joshua Wong, once the most recognisable face of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for colluding with foreign forces under the territory’s national security law.
Wong, who turned 30 last month, has already spent six years in custody and was due for release in January 2027. He will now spend another decade behind bars. Two months and two days of the new term will run concurrently with his existing sentence.
The judge said he had taken a 13-year sentence as his starting point, reducing it to 10 years because of Wong’s guilty plea, entered in September, and mitigation.
Prosecutors said Wong conspired with other campaigners, including the self-exiled activist Nathan Law, to lobby for foreign sanctions and blockades against Beijing between July and late November 2020. The two had co-founded Demosisto, a pro-democracy party that disbanded in 2020.
Condemnation and defence
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said Wong and Law were “among the primary culprits responsible for undermining Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability”, and that their actions “not only severely undermined national sovereignty, security, and development interests, but also directly prejudiced the well-being of the general public”. Beijing’s foreign ministry said China “firmly supports [Hong Kong] in safeguarding national security in accordance with the law”.
The US consulate in Hong Kong said it “strongly condemns” the sentence and called for Wong’s immediate release. Amnesty International called it “another grim reminder of how Hong Kong’s National Security Law has become a tool to punish dissent”.
Human Rights Watch Asia director Elaine Pearson said authorities “appear to have adopted the tactic of stacking charges against influential pro-democracy leaders”.
The heaviest sentence handed down under the law so far remains the 20 years given to former media tycoon Jimmy Lai, also for collusion with foreign forces.
Wong first came to prominence at 14, co-founding the student group Scholarism in 2011, and was a leading figure in the 2014 Umbrella Movement. Hundreds of campaigners have been arrested under the security law since it was imposed in 2020.
