Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong gets 10 years in jail on national security charge
Student leader Joshua Wong arrives at the Eastern Law Courts in Hong Kong, Aug. 28, 2015. Reuters-Yonhap
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 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 punishment must fit the gravity of the crime," High Court Judge William Tam told a packed courtroom while delivering the sentence.
"It is also necessary for the court 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, 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, but has said he never called for independence for Hong Kong or sought regime change in China.
The cases of Wong and others are being closely watched by international human rights groups and some Western and Asian countries tracking the implementation of the national security law in the former British colony.
In February, media tycoon Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong's most vocal China critic, was jailed for 20 years for collusion with foreign forces and sedition after a landmark trial that sparked international criticism.
Chief Superintendent of Police for National Security Steve Li Kwai-wah speaks to the media outside the Hong Kong's High Court after the sentencing of pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong in a separate National Security Law case in Hong Kong, Nov. 5. EPA-Yonhap
Wong nods to public gallery ahead of sentencing
Wearing a blue shirt and dark-framed glasses, with a short back-and-sides haircut, Wong, flanked by three guards, repeatedly nodded to the public gallery ahead of the sentencing.
"I have never advocated Hong Kong independence, nor have I ever promoted the 'collapse of China' or regime change," Wong said during the trial's mitigation phase.
"I have also never received foreign funding or spent money to hire foreign political consultants."
Wong, repeatedly detained for his role in organising pro-democracy rallies, said he believed at the time he was within the bounds of the law, only to realise later he "had been mistaken".
He has been in detention since November 2020, when he pleaded guilty to inciting and organising an unauthorised anti-government assembly during protests that roiled the Asian financial hub in 2019. He had been due for release next year.
Beijing said the law was necessary to stabilise the city.
'Black hand' accusation
Wong's meetings with politicians from the United States, Europe and elsewhere, have drawn the wrath of Beijing, which calls him a "black hand" of foreign forces.
The offences took place between July 1 and November 23, 2020, a time when Hong Kong was facing a high risk to its rule of law, the judge said.
At a September hearing, the prosecution highlighted what it called an international media and political campaign by Demosisto, a now-disbanded political party of which Wong was a leader that sought to bring sanctions and other hostile actions on Hong Kong and China in 2019 and 2020.
The group at one point also backed a referendum on Hong Kong's sovereignty.