Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong jailed for 10 yearsWorld

He was accused of conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others in 2020 to ask foreign countries, institutions, organisations or individuals outside China to impose sanctions or blockades, or to engage in other hostile activities against the Hong Kong and Chinese governments.

Wong became the international face of Hong Kong’s democracy movement, first as a student leader and later as one of the city’s best-known pro-democracy politicians.

The sentence is a second national security conviction for Wong. In 2024, a Hong Kong court sentenced him to four years and eight months in prison for subversion in the trial of 47 pro-democracy politicians and activists, commonly known as the Hong Kong 47 case.

That term had been due to end in January, and Wong had been expected to be released then. But in June 2025, while he was still serving that sentence, the authorities charged him again under the national security law, this time over the alleged appeals for foreign sanctions between July and November 2020.

Wong has spent almost six years behind bars, having been in custody continuously since November 2020. The new 10-year sentence means his imprisonment will now run for many more years.

The national security law was imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing in 2020, after months of large pro-democracy protests in the city in 2019. The law covers offences including secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, and carries heavy penalties.

Wong first came to prominence as a teenage student leader, when he led a campaign against a proposed school curriculum in 2012. He later became a central figure in the 2014 Umbrella Movement and in the 2019 protests against a proposed extradition bill.

He served as secretary-general of the pro-democracy party Demosisto until it disbanded after the national security law came into force. Since then he has been repeatedly jailed, first over an unauthorised protest in 2019 and then in the national security cases.

The case has drawn international attention, with supporters describing Wong as a symbol of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and critics of the law saying it has been used to silence dissent. The Hong Kong and Chinese governments say the law was needed to restore stability after the 2019 protests.

For Wong, the sentence closes the prospect of the release he had been expecting in January and keeps one of Hong Kong’s most internationally recognised activists in prison. His supporters have said they will continue to campaign for his release, while the authorities have given no indication of any change in his case.