Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner Joshua Wong’s time in prison has been extended after a court Thursday meted out a 10-year sentence over a second national security conviction.
Wong became the face of Hong Kong’s now-decimated pro-democracy movement when he was a teenager, and entered prison for the first time at 23. He turned 30 last month.
In September, he pleaded guilty to conspiring with fellow activists to invite foreign sanctions against China and Hong Kong in 2020 – the year Beijing introduced the city’s National Security Law (NSL), which led to a crackdown on dissent, the shuttering of vocal news outlets, and the dissolution of civic groups.
Wong is already serving 4 years and 8 months in prison, after pleading guilty in a landmark subversion trial in 2024. He was due for release in January.
Beijing imposed the sweeping national security law on Hong Kong after huge and often violent pro-democracy protests convulsed the international financial hub in 2019.
The law tightened Beijing’s grip on the former British colony. Both the Hong Kong and Chinese governments say it has helped restore stability, but rights groups say the law has stifled dissent and made any criticism of the government risky.
China’s leaders have previously labeled Wong and other activists “separatists.”
In the latest case, prosecutors accused Wong of conspiring with others to lobby the United States and other countries to sanction China and Hong Kong, prior to the NSL’s imposition.
This, they said, happened through social media campaigning, as well as meetings with US politicians, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then Senator Marco Rubio, now the US secretary of state.
The lobbying continued after the law was enacted, prosecutors said, with the US sanctioning more than a dozen Hong Kong and Chinese officials after 2020.
A Hong Kong government spokesperson earlier dismissed international criticism of Wong’s prosecution.
“The lawful exercise of free speech must not be conflated with taking actions to collude with a foreign country to impose ‘sanctions’ to harm one’s own country,” they said in September.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
