Joshua Wong’s latest sentence

Joshua Wong is given 10 years for ‘conspiring to collude with foreign forces’. That charge came in July last year – five years after the alleged offences, and after five years in prison for inciting unlawful assembly and ‘conspiracy to subvert state power’ (participating in a primary election). This new sentence just so happens to come just before he would have been released in January. The judge ordered that two months of the new sentence will be served concurrently…

Wong was accused of conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and other unnamed individuals in 2020 to request that foreign countries impose sanctions and blockades, or engage in other hostile activities, directed against the governments of Hong Kong and mainland China.

The pair, both co-founders of the now-disbanded pro-democracy party Demosisto, had engaged in an “international battlefront” in the wake of the 2019 protests and unrest.

They lobbied for the passing of legislation such as the US’s Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, prosecutors said.

BBC story.

Samuel Bickett says…

…The charges, and the sentence, against Wong are nonsense. In Hong Kong’s national security courts, the facts matter little. Nonetheless, judges are expected to make a show of pretending to hold a fair hearing and explaining their sentencing.

Judge Tam here insists, twice, that Wong “is not to be punished for his pre-NSL acts or activities, nor for his political ideology.” The charge covers July 1 to November 23, 2020. So here, in full, is what the judgment says Wong himself did during that period:

July 1: He reshared a Facebook post in which Nathan Law, his former party colleague, announced that he would testify before the US House Foreign Affairs Committee.

July 2: He reshared Law’s post announcing that Law had left Hong Kong, which said the “International Battlefront” had to be defended.

July: In several posts, he wrote that he would not give up his views or his advocacy abroad, that his “comrades” overseas would carry that work on, and that some people needed to stay in Hong Kong.

July 10: He told Commercial Radio that he had lobbied for a US human rights law in the past, when doing so was legal; that he had been in touch with Law; and that people overseas should keep speaking about Hong Kong.

July 18 and 28: He reshared Law’s online petition asking Cellebrite, an Israeli phone-hacking company, to stop selling to the Hong Kong Police, and noted that tens of thousands of people had signed it.

July 21: He reshared Law’s post about meeting British officials and urging sanctions on Hong Kong police officers.

August 7 and October 9: He posted that Cellebrite would stop supplying the Hong Kong Police, the second time by sharing Cellebrite’s own press release.

August 15: He wrote in the Guardian that “we will never surrender.”

September 24: On the day he was arrested over a 2019 protest, he told Deutsche Welle, “I will continue to stay and fight.”

September 29: He wrote in the Financial Times that business executives should diversify their investments away from China.

November 22: The night before he was jailed, he posted a progress report for his supporters on Facebook and Patreon, mentioning letters he had written to Sony and Apple warning them against collaborating with the Chinese government.

That is the whole list. Nearly every item on it is either a repost of someone else’s words or some version of “I will keep fighting.”

The judgment does not identify a single foreign official Wong met after the law took effect…

…How does a court turn a few reposts into a crime “of a grave nature”? Judge Tam took two steps to bend the law to his needs.

First, the court reached back to before the NSL existed. The charge was conspiracy: Wong was convicted of agreeing with Law to collude with foreign forces, under Hong Kong’s ordinary conspiracy law, which let the court attribute Law’s activity in London to Wong in Hong Kong. But Judge Tam found that the agreement was made between 2016 and June 2020, when lobbying foreign governments was entirely legal.

Second, the court held Wong responsible for American policy… 

Timothy McLaughlin says…

Not unthinkable that they will charge him again at some point and continue stacking years on his sentence. A life sentence draws a lot of media coverage and condemnation, going it bit by bit not so much 

The Guardian reports on his letter from prison…

Despite spending his 21st, 25th and 30th birthdays in prison, Wong’s letters – written between August and October – show his resolve and continuing concern about Hong Kong’s future.

“The only thing I worry about is that people will forget Hong Kong, and that amid competition and struggles between great powers, they will forget the countless ordinary, unknown people in different places who have paid a price for their beliefs,” he writes.

And on the reaction from governments and NGOs…

Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said: “The harsh sentence on baseless charges against Joshua Wong is cruel and unjust. Young people promoting social change are an asset for any vibrant society, but the Hong Kong government puts them behind bars.”

Sarah Brooks, deputy regional director for Amnesty International, said: “Today’s sentence is another grim reminder of how Hong Kong’s National Security Law has become a tool to punish dissent rather than to genuinely protect national security.”

She said the new conviction “cruelly – and perhaps deliberately – comes mere months before he would have been eligible for release under his previous conviction”.

The government comes out with its own comment on the case…

The reasons for sentence handed down by the court ruled that the offence in this case was of a grave nature, and pointed out that at the material time, Hong Kong was confronted with the social turmoil and the serious effects of riots, and was facing very high risks to national security and the rule of law. The acts of Wong Chi-fung and others aggravated the serious predicament. They had direct engagement with top or senior officials of foreign countries, and continued to promote the calls for sanctions through their own social media accounts and via prominent news media or outlets in the West, reaching both local and international audiences. Wong Chi-fung and Law Kwun-chung were the masterminds of the case and the advocates at the forefront calling for foreign countries to impose sanctions and hostile measures. After the implementation of the HKNSL, they persisted in acts endangering national security and deliberately adapted their respective roles, yet their roles were equally crucial. They indeed contributed to the imposition of sanctions and hostile measures by foreign countries, and such sanctions and measures significantly impacted upon and endangered national security. 

And ‘strongly condemns and opposes’ criticism of the sentence. The CE, Security Secretary, LegCo and police all voice support.

Another book seller arrested…

The National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police Force today (November 5) took enforcement action in Mong Kok and arrested a 34-year-old local man. He was suspected of contravening the offence of “importing a publication that has a seditious intention” under Section 24 of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.

Investigation revealed that the arrested person, a company director of a local company, was suspected of importing seditious books into local bookstores with the intent to bring hatred, contempt or disaffection against the Central People’s Government and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.