Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in prison for conspiring to collude with foreign forces, his second conviction under the national security law Beijing imposed on the city in 2020, a sentence that will keep him behind bars until late 2036.

High Court Judge William Tam handed down the sentence after Wong, 30, pleaded guilty in September to conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others to ask foreign countries and organisations to impose sanctions, blockades or other hostile measures against Hong Kong or China between July and November 2020. Judge Tam described the offence as of a "grave nature", adopted 13 years as a starting point and reduced it to 10 because of the guilty plea. The maximum penalty was life imprisonment.

Wong was already serving a four-year, eight-month term for conspiracy to commit subversion in the "Hong Kong 47" case, the largest mass prosecution under the security law, and had been due for release in January 2027. Only about two months of the new sentence will run concurrently with that term, meaning he will remain in prison for almost another decade. He has been in custody since November 2020 and marked his 30th birthday behind bars last month.

From student leader to prisoner

Wong first came to prominence as a teenage student leader during Hong Kong's 2014 Umbrella Movement and later served as secretary-general of the now-disbanded political party Demosisto. He is the only defendant from the Hong Kong 47 case to have been charged a second time under the national security law. He was arrested again in June 2025 inside Stanley Prison on the fresh charge.

The case drew swift condemnation from rights groups. Human Rights Watch called the charges baseless and said Wong faced imprisonment until late 2036, when he will be 40. Amnesty International said the sentence showed the security law had become "a tool to punish dissent". Earlier this year, pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years under the same legislation.

A movement dismantled

The sentencing underlines how completely Hong Kong's once-vibrant pro-democracy movement has been dismantled since the 2019 protests and the imposition of the security law in 2020. Most of its prominent figures are in prison, in exile or have withdrawn from public life, and the law's broad provisions on secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces have reshaped the city's politics, media and civil society.

The Hong Kong government has defended the law as necessary to restore stability after the 2019 unrest, saying it targets only a small minority who endanger national security. Critics, including Western governments, say it has been used to criminalise peaceful dissent. Wong's case is likely to feature in those arguments for years to come, as he spends his thirties in prison for a campaign conducted six years ago.