Joshua Wong, the 30-year-old face of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, received a 10-year prison sentence Thursday for colluding with foreign forces under Beijing’s national security law. Thursday’s ruling from the High Court ranked among the most severe penalties levied under the Beijing-imposed national security law, equal to that received by former law professor Benny Tai and exceeded only by former media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s 20-year sentence.
Here is why that matters. Wong was sentenced for his second conviction under the national security law. When Wong left the courtroom, supporters were present, as people lined up outside Hong Kong’s High Court ahead of a Thursday morning sentencing.
The Charge Built on Washington Meetings
Prosecutors centered their case on Wong’s international lobbying, alleging he conspired with fellow activist Nathan Law in or around 2016 to lobby internationally to achieve their goal of democratic self-determination. The prosecution pointed to Wong’s meetings with U.S. politicians Nancy Pelosi and Marco Rubio in 2016 and 2019, alongside his social media campaigning. Beijing has labeled Wong and other activists “separatists,” while Hong Kong’s chief executive John Lee declared Thursday that Wong and Law were “among the primary culprits responsible for undermining Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability”.
From Scholarism to the Hong Kong 47
But there is a catch: Wong was already serving a substantial term. At 30, he has spent his 21st, 25th and 30th birthdays in prison. He co-founded the student activist group Scholarism in 2011, which rallied more than 100,000 people in 2012 to protest against Hong Kong’s plans to implement mandatory “patriotic education” in schools, forcing the authorities to back down. By 2014 he was a recognizable face of the “Umbrella Movement”, appearing on the cover of Time magazine under the headline: “The Face of Protest”. In 2016 he co-founded Demosisto with Law and Agnes Chow. When the 2019 protests erupted, Wong was serving a prison sentence for the 2014 demonstrations but was released at the height of the protests and immediately took to the streets. He was subsequently barred from participating in the 2020 elections and indicted in the “Hong Kong 47” case—the biggest prosecution under the national security law—following prosecutors’ claim that Wong and others undermined the Hong Kong government in 2020 through a primary election. At the time he faced collusion charges under the NSL last year, he was already serving a 56-month sentence for the subversion conviction.
With only about two months remaining on that previous term, Wong’s new 10-year sentence ensures he stays imprisoned. This makes the ruling among the heaviest imposed under the Beijing-imposed law, matching former law professor Benny Tai’s 10-year term and surpassed only by media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s 20-year sentence.
| Defendant | Sentence | Charge |
|---|---|---|
| Jimmy Lai | 20 years | National security offenses |
| Joshua Wong | 10 years | Collusion with foreign forces |
| Benny Tai | 10 years | – |
| Hong Kong 47 defendants | Up to 10 years | Subversion |
Weaponizing the Law to Silence Dissent
Following the implementation of the NSL, civil society groups have dissolved, and certain independent media organizations have been closed. Hong Kong’s security bureau reports that over 400 arrests have been made under national security legislation. Wong’s prison letters reveal his continuing concern for the city’s future, writing that “the only thing I worry about is that people will forget Hong Kong, and that amid competition and struggles between great powers, they will forget the countless ordinary, unknown people in different places who have paid a price for their beliefs.”
Even cultural production has drawn scrutiny. A pro-Beijing newspaper article in September attacked a 2017 Netflix documentary about Wong for “beautifying” his crimes, which led the city’s security bureau to inform local media that the government was pursuing follow-up measures—but the documentary subsequently rose to the top of Netflix’s trending list in Hong Kong.
Wong Reflects on Faith and Isolation
From inside Hong Kong’s oldest maximum security prison, Wong has kept reading books. His letters, written between August and October, reveal a man who quotes scripture—”There is no fear in love”—and asks friends to take screenshots of social media accounts on his behalf. People lined up outside Hong Kong’s High Court ahead of a Thursday morning sentencing. Resident ET Wong said that when Joshua Wong was just a teenager, he possessed “big-picture thinking” that some adults might not even have, adding, “At least in my heart, he should not have spent a single day in wrongful imprisonment.”
What remains unknown is whether international attention will sustain itself now that Wong faces a decade of incarceration. With his release previously expected in January, the question lingers: when prominent voices of Hong Kong’s democracy movement are imprisoned, who will speak for the city, and will the world still be listening?
Joshua Wong, one of Hong Kong's best-known pro-democracy activists, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday in a fresh national security prosecution brought while he was already serving time behind bars. Wong, who has been imprisoned since November 2020, was due to be… pic.twitter.com/6tSQDutG53
More on Hong Kong
Activist Joshua Wong, 30, who became the international face of Hong Kong's democracy movement, was sentenced to 10 years in jail on a charge of collusion with foreign entities under the city's national security law https://t.co/RDnJGCXyt9
Joshua Wong sentenced to 10 years in prison for his second conviction under a Beijing-imposed national security law. https://t.co/ZXysvJNqKr
