HONG KONG (AP) — Prominent Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong was sentenced to 10 more years in prison Thursday under a Beijing-imposed national security law, in a case that critics say reflects the crackdown on the city’s once-thriving pro-democracy movement.
Wong was charged in 2025 with conspiracy to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security and he pleaded guilty
to the offense earlier this year.The 30-year-old is already serving a four-year,
eight-month prison term for the city’s biggest national security case linked to an unofficial primary. Before being prosecuted in the latest case, Wong had been expected to be freed in January 2027.
Judge William Tam ruled that Wong’s offense was of a grave nature and that he was a mastermind of the conspiracy. Tam said Wong and fellow activist Nathan Law continued to conspire together to have direct contact and collude with senior officials or institutions of foreign governments, or other external elements, and to call for their adverse interference against China and Hong Kong.
Tam pointed to the U.S. revocation of the city's different treatment as a special administrative region and the sanctions against Chinese and Hong Kong officials, saying these were the kind of sanctions or hostile measures Wong and Law had called for.
“The punishment must fit the gravity of the crime committed,” he wrote. “It is also necessary for this court to express the community’s abhorrence of the defendant’s scheme and acts together with others to collude with foreign forces...and to serve the imperative of general deterrence.”
Tam said he considered a 13-year prison sentence as a starting point but reduced it because of Wong's guilty plea and mitigation.
Tam said Wong would serve the remaining two months of the sentence for his first national security conviction concurrently with the new sentence.
Wong looked calm and thanked his supporters before leaving the court. His supporters waved to him, and Tiffany Chin, a former member of the now-disbanded Scholarism, once led by Wong, was in tears.
In a statement obtained by The Associated Press, Wong wrote in prison that his political participation was never driven by hatred and he bears no resentment toward the Chinese or Hong Kong governments, adding that he never advocated Hong Kong independence.
He said he thought he was acting within the law, but only later realized his judgment was wrong.
He said during his nearly six years in prison, he enrolled in university courses and read hundreds of books. He said he devoted himself to becoming a more responsible and compassionate person, and he hoped he’d be able to look back on this period as a trial that strengthened him.
Hong Kong once had a freewheeling civil society marked by its vibrant protest and media scenes. But after an anti-government movement rocked the city in 2019, authorities reduced public choice in elections and arrested many leading activists. Some news outlets known for their reports critical of the government shut down, and dozens of civil society groups dissolved.
Observers say Wong's sentencing shows the authorities' determination to keep prominent activists in prison for as long as possible, further chilling civic activism.
“NSL charges can be repeatedly weaponized to keep a specific political prisoner in jail, if the government deems necessary,” said Eric Lai, a research fellow at Georgetown Center for Asian Law, referring to the national security law.
But Beijing views Wong as an anti-China figure supporting Hong Kong independence, a stance that crosses its red line. Hong Kong authorities also said the security law is crucial for the city’s stability following the 2019 protests, maintaining that the city's law enforcement actions were evidence-based.
The prosecution alleged that Wong and Law had agreed in or around 2016 to lobby internationally to achieve their goal of democratic self-determination.
After the security law was enacted, Law and others advanced their work abroad by meeting foreign politicians and launching petition drives, it said. Wong supported the effort from Hong Kong through foreign media outlets and social media to draw foreign countries’ attention and bolster the request for sanctions, blockade or other hostile measures against China and Hong Kong, it said.
His lawyer Derek Chan earlier urged the court to impose a sentence that would give his client some hope, adding that Wong wishes to take care of his parents after his release.
After the hearing, Wong's friend Louis Lee, also a former Scholarism member, told reporters they need time to digest the matter but thanked everyone for their concern and support for Wong.
Steve Li, chief superintendent of the police’s national security department, said his department welcomed the court's ruling. Li said he hoped Wong would reflect on his wrongdoings and seize the opportunity to cultivate a law-abiding spirit and come to properly understand his country.
To his supporters, Wong is a political star representing a younger generation born in the final years of Hong Kong's British colonial rule before the city's return to China in 1997.
Despite being held behind bars, Wong's influence appears to have remained a concern, at least for the pro-Beijing camp.
In September, a pro-Beijing newspaper report criticized a 2017 documentary about Wong on Netflix for “beautifying” his crimes. The city’s security bureau told local media the government was taking follow-up action.
But the documentary then shot to the top of Netflix’s popular chart in Hong Kong.
Rights groups have raised concerns over Wong's case. Dozens of people queued outside the court building to secure a seat in the public gallery as early as Tuesday. Resident ET Wong said Wong walked a difficult path for Hong Kong’s future, human rights and student movement.
“At least in my heart, he should not have spent a single day in wrongful imprisonment,” she said.
