Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong seeks lighter sentence in landmark security case

HONG KONG (AP) — Prominent activist Joshua Wong asked the court for a lighter sentence Friday after pleading guilty in Hong Kong's biggest national security case.

Wong was one of 47 activists charged in 2021 under a Beijing-imposed national security law with conspiracy to commit subversion over their involvement in an unofficial primary. The activists were accused of trying to paralyze Hong Kong’s government and overthrow the city’s leader by seeking a legislative majority and using it to indiscriminately block the city’s budgets.

Wong and 44 others have pleaded guilty or been convicted in court. They face life in prison, though those who pleaded guilty are more likely to receive shorter sentences. Their mass trial has dealt a blow to the city's once-thriving pro-democracy movement.

Wong greeted the audience after entering the courtroom. Former Democratic Party chairman Wu Chi-wai, former pro-democracy lawmaker Jeremy Tam and activist Tam Tak-chi were among five other activists who also appeared in court.

Wong's lawyer, Marco Li, said his client should be considered an “active participant” because he neither organized nor helped in the unofficial primaries. The security law provides that active participants face a prison sentence of three to 10 years.

Li said Wong hoped to be able to put his past behind him and reform after serving his sentence. He suggested judges offer his client a one-third reduction in his sentence in light of his guilty plea.

Wong rose to fame in Hong Kong in 2012 as a teenager after leading protests against the implementation of national education in the city's schools.

In 2014, he rose to prominence as one of the student leaders of the city's Occupy movement, during which protesters occupied the streets for 79 days and paralyzed traffic in some areas, demanding direct elections for Hong Kong's leader.

During the 2019 leaderless movement, Wong helped mobilize foreign support for the protests. His activism earned Beijing the label of him as a Hong Kong independence advocate who had “begged for intervention” by foreign forces.

When the security law was enacted on June 30, 2020, “Demosisto,” a political party he co-founded, was dissolved.

Mitigation hearings for the 45 convicted defendants are expected to continue through early August, with sentencing to follow at a later date.

The national security law allows for a range of sentences depending on the seriousness of the offence and the defendant's role in it, from less than three years for less serious offences to ten years to life in prison for those convicted of “serious” offences.

Critics said the case illustrated how the security law is being used against the city’s pro-democracy activists. But the Hong Kong and Beijing governments both maintain that the law restored stability after the 2019 protests.