Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong to be sentenced for collusion

Activist Joshua Wong, who became the global face of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, is due to be sentenced on Thursday on a charge of collusion with foreign entities, which could put him behind bars for life under the city’s national security law.

Now 30 years old, Wong was among a group of young people whose protest efforts have now effectively been outlawed by sweeping security legislation that Beijing imposed on the Asian financial hub in 2020.

High Court Judge William Tam is set to hand down the sentence for Wong’s conviction for foreign collusion at 9.30am Malaysian time, according to a court diary.

Wong is accused of conspiring with exiled activist Nathan Law and others to ask foreign countries, institutions, organisations or individuals outside China to impose sanctions or blockades — or engage in other hostile activities — against Hong Kong or China. The alleged conspiracy took place between July 1 and Nov 23, 2020.

Wong is already in jail serving a sentence on an earlier national security charge of conspiracy to commit subversion after he was among a group of pro-democratic activists who participated in an unofficial primary election in 2020.

That sentence was due to end in 2027.

The 2020 primary was an unofficial vote aimed at picking the pro-democracy camp’s strongest candidates and helping it secure a majority in Hong Kong’s legislature.

Prosecutors accused the activists of plotting to use control of the legislature to block government budgets and ultimately force the city’s leader to resign, a strategy that authorities said amounted to subversion.