Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong has been sentenced to a further 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to colluding with foreign forces, in his second conviction under the city’s sweeping national security law.
The High Court handed down the sentence on Thursday. Judge William Tam called the case grave, saying Wong had conspired with others to call for foreign sanctions at a time when Hong Kong was dealing with its own social turmoil, and that the punishment had to fit the gravity of the crime.
Wong, 30, pleaded guilty in September to conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others in 2020 to ask foreign countries, institutions and individuals to impose sanctions or blockades, or engage in other hostile activities, against the governments of Hong Kong and China. Prosecutors said the lobbying involved social media campaigning and meetings with United States politicians, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then Senator Marco Rubio, now the US secretary of state, and continued after the national security law came into force.
The sentence lands on top of a punishment Wong is already serving. He is serving four years and eight months for subversion over his role in an unofficial primary election in 2020, the landmark “47 case” in which dozens of pro-democracy figures were prosecuted. Reports said he had been due for release in January; the new sentence means he now faces many more years behind bars.
Outside the court on Thursday morning, police stepped up security as dozens of supporters gathered, some having camped out for two nights. One supporter held a card bearing Wong’s name, while others spoke of a campaigner they had followed since he was a teenager. When he was led into court, Wong, wearing a navy shirt and his usual black-framed glasses, nodded to supporters in the public gallery.
Wong first rose to prominence as a school student, leading protests in 2012 that overturned a plan to introduce Chinese civic education in Hong Kong schools, and then becoming one of the key leaders of the 2014 Umbrella Movement, when protesters blocked major roads for 79 days to demand greater democracy. In 2016 he co-founded the pro-democracy party Demosisto, which disbanded hours after Beijing imposed the national security law on 30 June 2020.
Beijing imposed the law after huge and often violent pro-democracy protests convulsed Hong Kong in 2019. Both the Hong Kong and Chinese governments say it has restored stability, but rights groups say it has stifled dissent, shuttered independent news outlets and driven most pro-democracy figures into jail or exile. Hong Kong’s legislature now comprises only pro-Beijing loyalists, and many of the city’s civic groups have disbanded.
For a movement that once filled the streets, Wong’s sentence is a measure of how completely its leadership has been removed from public life. The man who became the international face of Hong Kong’s democracy protests as a teenager now faces the prospect of entering middle age in prison, while the colleagues he campaigned alongside are largely jailed or in exile abroad.
Note: the featured image is a file photo of Joshua Wong at a protest in Hong Kong on 29 October 2019, not a photograph of Thursday’s sentencing.
Sources: Reuters, “Hong Kong court sentences activist Joshua Wong to 10 years on national security charge” (5 November 2026), https://www.reuters.com/world/hong-kong-court-sentences-activist-joshua-wong-10-years-national-security-charge-2026-11-05/ ; CNN, “Hong Kong democracy campaigner Joshua Wong handed another 10 years in jail” (5 November 2026), https://www.cnn.com/2026/11/04/china/hong-kong-china-joshua-wong-sentence-hnk-intl
