By Greg Torode and Anne Marie Roantree
HONG KONG, Nov 5 (Reuters) – 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 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.
He will be approaching 40 when he leaves jail, a long way off from his days as a one-year-old toddler in 1997, when Britain handed his city back to China with a promise of extensive autonomy and freedom of speech and assembly.
“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.
“I replied: ‘You are not my enemy. We are all Hong Kongers; there is no antagonism between us,'” he added in his mitigation comments.
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 pro-democracy “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.
“BLACK HAND”
Wong became a familiar face on the international scene and a thorn in the side of authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong, featuring on the front cover of Time magazine in 2014 and in a Netflix documentary in 2017 that chronicled his political life.
Along with other Hong Kong critics of mainland China, including media tycoon Jimmy Lai, he was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
He made it a mission to drum up support for Hong Kong’s democracy movement at home and overseas, meeting politicians from the United States and Europe, drawing the wrath of Beijing, which called him a “black hand” of foreign forces.
Outsiders who met him during this time recall his striking air of quiet determination, and apparently unshakable convictions.
When Wong left jail in June 2019 at the height of the protests, he was not a leading figure in organising the rallies, but he once again became one of the movement’s most globally recognised faces.
Scholarism had morphed into Demosisto, a political party that once backed a referendum on Hong Kong’s sovereignty and installed the youngest candidate ever on the city’s Legislative Council before he was disqualified.
Demosisto was disbanded within hours after the National Security Law was passed.
In 2017, just before another sentencing, Wong told more than 100 supporters who thronged the court lobby, some weeping, that he had no regrets.
“I hope Hong Kong people won’t give up,” he said. “Victory is ours. When we are released next year I hope we can see a Hong Kong that is full of hope. I want to see Hong Kong people not giving up. This is my last wish before I go to jail.”
Nearly 10 years on, Wong’s extended term in prison is the latest blow for a movement whose followers find themselves in detention, exile or, in the case of some, cowed into silence.
Standing in the dock on Thursday, Wong was silent as the judge sentenced him to 10 years in jail that will keep him in prison after his current term ends in January. The sentence will be served concurrently, effectively shortening it by two months.
Wong mentioned a desire to eventually look after his ageing parents above all.
This, along with the fact that books on Chinese history and Hong Kong’s mini-constitution were among the hundreds he was reading in jail, prompted the judge to hail Wong’s efforts at rehabilitation as “commendable”.
(Reporting by Greg Torode and Anne Marie Roantree; additional reporting by Lisa Jucca; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Saad Sayeed)
