A Hong Kong court sentenced pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong to 10 years in prison under the Beijing-imposed national security law, drawing criticism from governments including the United States, the UK, and the European Union.
Wong, 30, rose to international prominence in 2014 as a student leader of the Umbrella Movement, which mounted one of the most significant challenges to the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover.
On Nov. 5, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to collude with foreign forces under Hong Kong’s Beijing-imposed national security law.
It was his second conviction under the law. He was already serving a four-year, eight-month sentence for subversion and was due to be released in January 2027. The court ordered two months and two days of the new sentence to run concurrently with the remainder of that term.
The foreign ministries of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK, and the United States said in a joint statement that the sentence and the recent convictions of Hong Kong Alliance leaders were further examples of how the national security law was being used to “target individuals for political expression and participation.” They called for an immediate end to “all unjust prosecutions” under the law.
The European Union said it deplored Wong’s 10-year sentence in a statement on Thursday, describing it as politically motivated. It said the timing and political nature of the charges “demonstrate a deterioration of the state of the rule of law in Hong Kong” and called for his immediate release.
The U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong said Wong has been unjustly imprisoned since 2020, according to a statement. It said that his case demonstrated that “Beijing will go to extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate for fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong.”
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, the government agency responsible for cross-strait affairs, strongly condemned the sentence in a statement. It said the CCP and Hong Kong leaders were using the national security law and other authoritarian tools to fabricate charges against democracy advocates, and called for the immediate release of those detained.
Hong Kong High Court Judge William Tam said in his ruling that Wong’s offense was of a “grave nature.”
The charge accused Wong of conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others to ask foreign governments or organizations to impose sanctions or other measures on Hong Kong and China. The ruling cited, as context, Wong’s earlier lobbying for the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, his calls for foreign governments to halt equipment supplies to Hong Kong police, and a petition he and Law launched urging European governments to pressure China to withdraw the national security law.
“Whilst it is a very heavy sentence on the defendant, the punishment must fit the gravity of the crime committed,” Tam stated.
The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump in November 2019, requires the United States to conduct an annual review of Hong Kong’s special trading relationship and to hold foreign officials accountable for certain human rights violations in the city.
China’s communist regime criticized those who condemned the ruling.
A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the UK, responding to a question about Conservative shadow Foreign Secretary Tom Tugendhat, Conservative lawmaker Sir Iain Duncan Smith, and crossbench peer Lord David Alton, urged “relevant UK politicians” to stop “interfering in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs.”
Wong’s sentence is “an absolute disgrace and yet another example of the Chinese Communist Party’s brutal suppression of democracy and freedom in Hong Kong,” Sir Iain wrote in an X post.
Tugendhat said in an X post that Wong’s only crime is “defending the liberty of others in Hong Kong.”
Lord Alton urged Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband in an X post to join Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch in speaking out and to summon the Chinese ambassador.
In the United States, Reps. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) both issued statements criticizing the Hong Kong court’s ruling and calling for his immediate release.
“Joshua Wong is a hero who has stood up to an authoritarian superpower,” said Moolenaar, who is the chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP.
“This is a shameless display of the CCP’s complete disregard for the universal human rights of life and liberty endowed to all of us by our Creator,” he said.
Pelosi, who has met with Wong a number of times, characterized the Hong Kong court’s ruling as “an appalling abuse of power.”
“The United States and the international community must demand Joshua’s immediate and unconditional release,” Pelosi stated.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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