Joshua Wong Gets 10-Year Sentence in Hong Kong Security Case

A Hong Kong high court judge sentenced the pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong to 10 years in prison on Thursday, after Wong pleaded guilty in September to "foreign collusion" under the city's national security law, according to The Guardian. Wong, 30, has been in custody since 2020 and is the only activist in Hong Kong to be prosecuted twice under the law, the Guardian reported.

What did the court rule in Wong's case?

Judge William Tam, presiding at the high court in Hong Kong, described Wong's conduct as "grave in nature," the Guardian reported. Tam said Wong had traveled to the United States to seek foreign interference before the national security law took effect in 2020, and continued afterward to share social media posts by the exiled activist Nathan Law calling for sanctions against China. The judge said Wong's role was to "supply his underground support" and to "arouse the attention of foreign countries to bolster the cause," characterizing the conduct as part of a "scheme" to collude with foreign governments. Tam ordered that the new 10-year term run concurrently with the remainder of Wong's sentence from his first national security conviction.

What was Wong accused of doing?

Prosecutors said Wong worked with Law, who lives in exile, to urge foreign governments to impose sanctions, blockades or other hostile measures against China over its handling of Hong Kong. Wong entered his guilty plea in September, according to the Guardian's reporting. The case marks the second time Wong has been convicted under the security legislation Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 following the 2019 protests.

What is Hong Kong's national security law?

The law, enacted in 2020, criminalizes acts including secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. Critics, cited by the Guardian, say it has been used to silence political opposition in the city since its passage. Wong first gained international attention as the teenage face of Hong Kong's 2014 Umbrella Movement protests, which called for greater electoral democracy in the territory.

What is the timeline of Wong's prosecutions?

• 2014: Wong rises to international prominence during Hong Kong's pro-democracy Umbrella protests.
• 2020: Beijing imposes the national security law on Hong Kong; Wong is taken into custody that year and has remained in prison since.
• First conviction: Wong is convicted under the national security law in an earlier case, the specifics of which were not detailed in available reporting.
• September 2026: Wong pleads guilty to a foreign collusion charge tied to his and Law's alleged efforts to seek sanctions against China.
• Nov. 5, 2026: Judge William Tam sentences Wong to 10 years in prison, to run concurrently with his remaining term from the earlier conviction.

How have activists and rights groups reacted?

Nathan Law, the exiled activist named in the case, said in a statement reported by the Guardian: "It's incredibly sad to see my friend Joshua Wong suffer another sentencing over his peaceful advocacy work for Hong Kong's democracy. The signal the sentencing sent to the world is that [China] is determined to quash any hopes for freedom and democracy on its soil."

Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International's deputy regional director, said the sentence represents a continuation of what the organization views as the use of the security law against political dissent, according to the Guardian's reporting. Hong Kong authorities have maintained that prosecutions under the law target genuine national security threats rather than peaceful political activity, though the court's reasoning in Wong's case, as described by Judge Tam, centered on his contacts with foreign governments and continued public advocacy for sanctions after the law's enactment.

Wong's case has drawn renewed international attention to the use of the 2020 law more than six years after its passage, with his defenders and Hong Kong's courts offering starkly different accounts of the same conduct: an effort, in the judge's words, to arouse foreign attention versus what Law described as "peaceful advocacy work." The Guardian reported that further details of Wong's circumstances inside a maximum-security prison were addressed in a separate exclusive interview, though the specifics of that account were not included in the sentencing report reviewed for this story.

No date for an appeal, if one is filed, was included in available reporting. The Guardian's dispatch, filed from Hong Kong, did not indicate whether Wong's legal team had commented on the ruling beyond the guilty plea entered in September.