Arabic version: الحكم على جوشوا وونغ بالسجن 10 سنوات في هونغ كونغ
According to BBC News, Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for colluding with foreign forces under the city’s national security law. Wong, who turned 30 last month, had already spent six years in prison and had been due to be released in January.
Wong pleaded guilty in September to the latest charges. The judge said two months and two days of the 10-year term would be served concurrently with his existing sentence. He is already serving time for subversion after being among 47 people charged in February 2021 with conspiracy to commit subversion, the largest prosecution under the national security law so far.
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 were co-founders of Demosisto, a pro-democracy political party that later disbanded.
Wong became a prominent figure in Hong Kong’s democracy movement after co-founding the student activist group Scholarism at age 14. Scholarism helped mobilise more than 100,000 people against proposed mandatory “patriotic education” in schools in 2012. He later became one of the best-known figures in the 2014 Umbrella Movement and was imprisoned multiple times for activism.
The national security law was imposed in 2020 after major pro-democracy protests against Beijing’s growing control over Hong Kong. Critics say the law has silenced dissent, while authorities say it is necessary to maintain stability and deny that it has weakened the city’s autonomy. Amnesty International said the charges against Wong showed authorities’ fear of prominent dissidents. The longest national security law sentence cited was 20 years for former media tycoon Jimmy Lai, also convicted of colluding with foreign forces.
