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Hong Kong's High Court on Thursday sentenced pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong to 10 years in prison for colluding with foreign forces under the city's national security law, in his second conviction under the Beijing-imposed law. High Court Judge William Tam, who described the offence as being of a "grave nature", said he had taken 13 years as a starting point and reduced it to 10 because of Wong's guilty plea. Wong, 30, had faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Wong was charged in 2025 with conspiracy to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security, and pleaded guilty to the charge in September. The court heard that between July 1 and November 23, 2020, he conspired with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others to ask foreign countries, bodies or individuals outside China to impose sanctions or blockades, or engage in other hostile activities against the government. The court described Wong and Law as "two ring-leaders or masterminds" of the conspiracy.
The sentence lands just two months before Wong was due to be released. He has been in custody since November 2020, when he pleaded guilty to organising and inciting an unauthorised assembly during the 2019 protests, and is serving a four-year, eight-month term imposed in November 2024 over his role in an unofficial primary election, in the city's largest national security case. Only about two months of that term remained, and he had been expected to walk free in January 2027. Two months and two days of the new sentence will run concurrently with the term he is already serving, meaning he will now remain in prison until late 2036, when he will be 40. He is the only activist in Hong Kong to have been prosecuted twice under the national security law.
Wong became the global face of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement as a teenager. In 2012, he rallied more than 100,000 people against the government's plans to introduce mandatory "patriotic education" in schools, forcing the authorities to back down. By 2014, he was at the forefront of the Umbrella Movement and had become one of the most recognisable faces of the movement. In 2016, he co-founded the political party Demosisto with Nathan Law and Agnes Chow; the party disbanded in 2020, the year Beijing introduced the National Security Law in Hong Kong.
Wong's friend and fellow activist Frances Hui, now based in the United States, said she was "heartbroken" and "outraged" by the verdict. "Today's sentencing is not just about Joshua. It is part of a broader political crackdown that seeks to rewrite a chapter of Hong Kong's history and erase the contributions of an entire generation who believed they could shape the future of their city," she told the BBC. Human Rights Watch described the ruling as "cruel and unjust". "To keep Hong Kong society subdued, and to reduce the chance of an international outcry, the Hong Kong government appears to have adopted the tactic of stacking charges against influential pro-democracy leaders," said its Asia director Elaine Pearson. Amnesty International said the sentence was "another grim reminder of how Hong Kong's National Security Law has become a tool to punish dissent". The United States consulate in Hong Kong said it "strongly condemns" the additional sentence and called for Wong's "immediate release".
Hong Kong's chief executive John Lee said Wong and Law were "among the primary culprits responsible for undermining Hong Kong's prosperity and stability". The harshest sentence handed down under the national security law so far has been 20 years for former media tycoon Jimmy Lai, also for colluding with foreign forces. Critics say the far-reaching law has silenced dissent, but the authorities argue it is needed to maintain stability.