Jailed since 2020, Joshua Wong will be 40 when he is released under his latest sentence.
File photo. Joshua Wong delivers a speech outside the office of then Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying on Oct 3, 2014. (Photo: Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
File photo. Joshua Wong delivers a speech outside the office of then Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying on Oct 3, 2014. (Photo: Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
HONG KONG: Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong, once a leader of the 2014 Umbrella Movement that posed one of the boldest populist challenges to the leaders of China's Communist Party in decades, was sentenced on Thursday (Nov 5) to 10 more years in jail.
Wong, who has been behind bars since 2020, pleaded guilty to a charge of collusion with foreign entities under the Asian financial hub's national security law, ushered in that year.
"One national security officer said he and I were "enemies" and lamented that he had lost many friends because of me," Wong said on Thursday, recalling the day he was charged.
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"I replied: 'You are not my enemy. We are all Hong Kongers; there is no antagonism between us'," he added in his mitigation comments.
File photo. Pro-democracy activists Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow arrive at the Eastern Court by police van after being arrested on suspicion for organising illegal protests in Hong Kong on Aug 30, 2019. (Photo: Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
ACTIVIST JOURNEY STARTED AT 14
Wong's activist journey started at just 14, as he emerged on Hong Kong's democratic stage by co-founding a group called Scholarism that held mass protests and ultimately forced the government to shelve plans for a pro-China national education scheme in schools.
By age 17, as a thin youth with bowl-cut hair and dark-rimmed glasses, Wong was the international face of the Umbrella Movement, referring to how protesters warded off riot police volleys of tear gas and pepper spray.
Wong's activism and vocal dissent landed him in jail numerous times, not least after the Umbrella Movement drew hundreds of thousands of protesters at its peak to paralyse streets in the city's heart for 79 days.
Prosecutors in the latest case accused Wong of working along with others to solicit foreign sanctions or hostile actions against Hong Kong and China between July and November 2020.
Though he pleaded guilty to the charge, Wong said he mistakenly thought his actions were within the law, adding that he had never advocated Hong Kong independence nor the collapse of China.
The timeframe of the events is key, since Beijing in late June of that year had imposed the National Security Law on the city following months of sometimes-violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.
The law effectively outlawed or put at risk many of the political activities that Wong and his peers once took for granted.