From the HERE City National Desk
HONG KONG — Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to collude with foreign forces under Hong Kong’s national security law.
The sentence came from the Court of First Instance of the High Court. Wong, 30, entered his guilty plea in September. He has been behind bars for about six years on earlier convictions, including subversion, and had been expected to go free in January.
The judge ordered two months and two days of the new term to run alongside the sentence Wong is already serving, so nearly all of the decade will be added time.
Prosecutors told the court Wong worked with other campaigners, among them exiled activist Nathan Law, to press foreign governments for sanctions against Beijing between July and late November 2020, the months right after the security law took effect. Wong and Law co-founded Demosisto, a pro-democracy party that has since disbanded.
Chief Executive John Lee named Wong and Law as leading figures in what he called efforts to undermine the city’s stability. The Hong Kong government said it welcomed the sentence as a deterrent and would move to seize any of Wong’s property linked to the offense, and it rejected foreign calls for his release.
China’s foreign ministry said Beijing supports Hong Kong in enforcing the law. Rights groups called the case part of a broader crackdown on the city’s opposition.
Wong rose to prominence as a teenager, co-founding the student group Scholarism in 2011 and becoming a leading face of the 2014 Umbrella Movement. The longest sentence under the security law so far, 20 years, went to former media owner Jimmy Lai.
