Hong Kong Adds Charges to Democracy Activist Joshua Wong Under National Security Law
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The National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police has charged Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong, who is still in prison, with “conspiracy to collude with a foreign or external force to endanger national security” under the National Security Law (NSL).
Wong was brought to the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on the afternoon of June 6. The charge states that between July 1 and Nov. 23, 2020, he and others, including Nathan Law who is currently in exile in the UK, requested foreign or external institutions to impose sanctions on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
Chief Magistrate So Wai-tak, at the request of the prosecution, then adjourned the case to Aug. 8 for further investigation by the police.
Wong was escorted to the court in a prison van that afternoon and said he “understood” after the court clerk read out the charges. He waved to the public gallery when the court was adjourned. Many of his friends attended the court hearing.
Authorities Trying to Extend His Detention: Amnesty
Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s China director, said this latest charge against Wong highlights the authorities’ fear of well-known dissidents and shows that they will do whatever it takes to keep these people in prison for as long as possible, thereby continuing to have a chilling effect on civil society.She continued that Wong had been sentenced for participating in Hong Kong’s primary election and was expected to be released from prison in 18 months. However, if this new case is established, he may face life imprisonment.
Multiple Sentences to Date
Wong is a well-known pro-democracy activist in Hong Kong who rose to prominence as a secondary school student opposing the Chinese Communist Party’s national education curriculum, which he criticized as an effort to brainwash students into being loyal to the CCP and not the promise of 50 years of autonomy for Hong Kong.In 2011, Wong and a group of fellow students founded Scholarism, with the then-15-year-old Wong serving as the convener. He became widely known during the 2012 anti-national education protests. In the 2014 Umbrella Movement, which called for universal suffrage,
Wong was one of the student leaders. In 2016, he co-founded the political party Demosistō, serving as its secretary-general, and helped party chairman Nathan Law become the youngest person ever elected to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council.
In 2019, Hong Kong citizens launched large-scale protests against the proposed amendment of “Fugitive Offenders Ordinance” that would have allowed the transfer of Hongkongers to mainland China.
After Beijing imposed the National Security Law in 2020, authorities began a sweeping crackdown on pro-democracy activists.
Joshua Wong was among those charged and sentenced—for surrounding police headquarters during the anti-extradition movement, for taking part in a June 4 vigil in Victoria Park in 2020, and for participating in the pro-democracy camp’s primary election that same year.
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