Prominent activist Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) yesterday asked for a lesser sentence in court after he earlier pleaded 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 for their involvement in an unofficial primary.
The activists were accused of attempting to paralyze Hong Kong’s government and topple the territory’s leader by aiming to win a legislative majority and using it to block budgets indiscriminately.
Photo: AP
Wong and 44 others admitted their liability or were convicted by the court. They could be sentenced to life in prison, though those who pleaded guilty have a better chance of receiving shorter sentences. Their mass prosecution dealt a severe blow to the territory’s once-thriving pro-democracy movement.
Wong waved at the public gallery after he walked into the courtroom.
Former Democratic Party chairman Wu Chi-wai (胡志偉), former pro-democracy lawmaker Jeremy Tam (譚文豪) and activist Tam Tak-chi (譚得志) were among the five other activists who also appeared in court.
Wong’s lawyer, Marco Li (李國威), said his client should be considered an “active participant,” because he neither organized nor assisted in the unofficial primary.
The security law calls for active participants to face a jail term of between three and 10 years.
Li said Wong hoped that he could part with his past history and would be able to reform himself after serving his sentence.
He suggested the judges offer his client a one-third reduction of sentence given his guilty plea.
Wong first became a household name in Hong Kong as a teenager in 2012 for leading protests against the implementation of national education in the territory’s schools.
In 2014, he rose to fame as one of the student leaders in the Occupy Movement, during which demonstrators occupied streets for 79 days and brought traffic in some areas to a standstill, demanding direct elections for Hong Kong’s leader.
In the 2019 leaderless movement, Wong helped drum up overseas support for the protests. His activism resulted in Beijing calling him as an advocate of Hong Kong independence who had “begged for interference” from foreign forces.
When the security law was enacted on June 30, 2020, “Demosisto,” a political party he cofounded, was disbanded.
The mitigation hearings for the 45 convicted defendants are expected to continue until early next month and sentencing will come at a later date.
The National Security Law authorizes a range of sentences depending on the seriousness of the offense and the defendant’s role in it, going from under three years for the least serious to 10 years to life in prison for people convicted of “grave” offenses.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS