Hong Kong’s High Court has sentenced pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong to 10 more years in prison, in his second conviction under Beijing’s national security law — a sentence that will keep one of the city’s best-known opposition figures behind bars until 2036.
Wong, 30, had pleaded guilty in September to conspiring to collude with foreign forces. The court ruled on Thursday that he and self-exiled former lawmaker Nathan Law had campaigned for foreign governments to impose sanctions and other hostile measures against Hong Kong and mainland China.
The sentence comes just two months before Wong was due to be released from an earlier prison term. Instead, he now faces the prospect of entering middle age in prison.
The sentence
Mr Justice William Tam Yiu-ho set 13 years as the starting point for the sentence, then reduced it by three years to reflect Wong’s guilty plea. The maximum penalty for the offence was life imprisonment.
“The punishment must fit the gravity of the crime,” the judge told a packed courtroom, describing the offence as grave. Under the national security law’s two-tier sentencing regime, a grave offence of this kind carries a minimum of 10 years.
The court said the usual one-third discount for a defendant who pleads guilty at the earliest opportunity was not available to Wong because of the national security law’s minimum sentence requirement.
Wong was accused of conspiring with Law and others to ask foreign countries, bodies or individuals outside China to impose sanctions or blockades, or to engage in other hostile activities against the government. The offences took place between July 1 and November 23, 2020, a period the judge said carried a very high risk to national security and the rule of law.
The court said the conviction was based solely on Wong’s activities after the national security law came into force, although his earlier acts were relevant to assessing the gravity of the offence.
Why he will not be freed in January
Wong is already serving a sentence of four years and eight months for conspiracy to subvert state power, imposed after a landmark trial in 2024 over primaries held to choose candidates for elections in Hong Kong in 2020. He had been due to complete that sentence in January 2027.
The judge ordered the remaining two months and two days of that sentence to run concurrently with the new 10-year term. That pushes Wong’s expected release date back to November 2036.
Wong has been in detention since November 2020, when he pleaded guilty to inciting and organising an unauthorised assembly during the protests that convulsed Hong Kong in 2019. He entered prison for the first time at 23 and turned 30 last month.
What he was convicted of
Prosecutors said Wong worked with Law and others through the pro-democracy group Demosisto to build international support for a campaign aimed at forcing Beijing to repeal the national security law and grant Hongkongers greater political freedom.
Demosisto was founded by Wong, Law and Agnes Chow in 2016 and disbanded shortly before the national security law took effect on June 30, 2020. The law, imposed by Beijing after huge and often violent pro-democracy protests in 2019, criminalises calls for foreign sanctions.
One focus of the campaign was the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, a US bill signed into law in November 2019 that allows Washington to impose sanctions on officials deemed responsible for undermining the city’s autonomy.
In a mitigation letter shown to the court, Wong wrote that his activism “was never driven by hatred.” His lawyers had urged the judge to set a starting sentence of no more than 10 years, arguing this would give him some hope for his future. The judge rejected a defence plea for a term of four and a half years.
Reaction
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, a former top security official, said after the sentence was announced that Wong and Law had committed “extremely serious offences, which not only severely undermined national sovereignty, security, and development interests, but also directly prejudiced the well-being of the general public and the stability of society.”
Human rights groups immediately demanded Wong’s release, saying he had been unjustly imprisoned since December 2020 and that Beijing would go to extraordinary lengths to silence advocates of fundamental freedoms.
Background
Wong became a prominent activist while still a teenager, first as a student campaigner and then as one of the faces of the 2014 Umbrella Movement, when protesters occupied parts of Hong Kong for 79 days demanding greater democracy.
He went on to become the youthful politician who became Hong Kong’s most prominent campaigner for democracy, and the global face of the city’s pro-democracy movement. His case has become one of the most closely watched tests of the national security law, under which hundreds of people have been arrested since 2020.
What happens next
Wong will serve the new 10-year term alongside the remainder of his earlier sentence, with release expected in November 2036. Law remains in self-exile overseas and was sentenced in his absence as part of the same case.
The sentence is likely to draw further condemnation from Western governments and rights groups, and to deepen the debate over the reach of the national security law six years after it was imposed.
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FAQ
Why was Joshua Wong jailed for 10 years?
He pleaded guilty to conspiring to collude with foreign forces by campaigning for foreign sanctions against Hong Kong and mainland China in 2020. The judge called the offence grave and set a starting point of 13 years, reduced to 10 for his guilty plea.
When will Joshua Wong be released?
His expected release date is now November 2036. He had been due to finish an earlier four-year, eight-month sentence in January 2027, but the remaining time on that sentence runs concurrently with the new 10-year term.
What is Hong Kong’s national security law?
It is a law imposed by Beijing on June 30, 2020, after the 2019 protests. It criminalises secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, and carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
Sources
- South China Morning Post — “Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong jailed for 10 years over bid to instigate sanctions on Beijing, Hong Kong” — https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3373335/joshua-wong-jailed-10-years-over-bid-instigate-sanctions-beijing-hong-kong
- The Wall Street Journal — “Hong Kong Extends Jailed Activist Joshua Wong’s Prison Term by 10 Years” — https://www.wsj.com/world/china/hong-kong-extends-jailed-activist-joshua-wongs-prison-term-by-10-years-6a9d9370
- Al Jazeera — “Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong sentenced to 10 years in jail” — https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/11/5/hong-kong-democracy-activist-joshua-wong-sentenced-to-10-years-in-jail
- CNN — “Hong Kong democracy campaigner Joshua Wong handed another 10 years in jail” — https://www.cnn.com/2026/11/04/china/hong-kong-china-joshua-wong-sentence-hnk-intl?cid=external-feeds_iluminar_meta
- The Times — “Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong jailed for 10 years” — https://www.thetimes.com/world/asia/article/hong-kong-activist-joshua-wong-jailed-for-10-years-under-national-security-law-s5m7sd02s
- BusinessWorld (Reuters) — “Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong gets 10 years in jail on national security charge” — https://bworldonline.com/world/2026/11/05/791680/hong-kong-activist-joshua-wong-gets-10-years-in-jail-on-national-security-charge/
