Jailed Hong Kong opposition activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung has admitted instigating international sanctions against central and local authorities six years ago, such as urging foreign businesses to avoid investment in mainland China and petitioning an Israeli forensic tech firm to terminate its services to the city’s police force.
The High Court heard on Wednesday that Wong, 29, had conspired with fugitive ex-lawmaker Nathan Law Kwun-chung, 33, and others to garner international support for their resistance campaign aimed at forcing Beijing to repeal the national security law and grant Hongkongers greater political freedom.
Wong pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces before Mr Justice William Tam Yiu-ho, a former top prosecutor who oversaw cases involving anti-government protesters in the aftermath of the 2019 social unrest.
The activist is set to face additional years behind bars, having already been sentenced to four years and eight months’ imprisonment for conspiring to subvert state power through his participation in an unofficial legislative primary election in July 2020.
Defence lawyers suggested Wong be sentenced to 4½ years in jail in the latest case, citing the less serious nature of the offence and the delay in prosecution.
But Tam expressed reservations, noting the defendant appeared to have lied about renouncing his previous calls for foreign sanctions in his failed bid to run in the 2020 Legislative Council election.
The court adjourned sentencing until an unspecified date.
A prosecution summary said Wong and Law, who were the secretary general and founding chairman of the now-defunct political group Demosisto, respectively, plotted to seek foreign intervention in Hong Kong affairs as early as 2016 in pursuit of the city’s self-determination.
Wong visited the United States in November 2016 to drum up support for the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which would allow the country’s president to punish Hong Kong and mainland officials for suppressing basic freedoms in the city.
In September 2019, amid the city’s political turmoil, the activist travelled to Washington again to urge the country’s lawmakers to pass the bill. It was signed into law two months later.
Between July 2019 and May 2020, Wong, Law and Demosisto also urged the US, Switzerland, Germany, France and Italy, among other nations, to stop exporting weapons and crowd control equipment to the Hong Kong Police Force.
In a Facebook post dated May 20, 2020, Wong claimed that he had contributed to the passage of two US laws restricting the export of tear gas and non-lethal munitions to the city’s police.
In the weeks leading up to the imposition of the national security law on June 30 that year, Wong, Law and their associates urged the US, Britain and European countries to incorporate human rights terms regarding Hong Kong in their trade deals with Beijing.
They also called on foreign governments to terminate any special status previously accorded to Hong Kong as a separate customs territory.
Demosisto disbanded just before the national security law took effect, and Law left Hong Kong shortly thereafter.
“Since political organisations are the primary targets of the [national security] law, resistance must now go underground, with some, like Nathan Law, fleeing the city to keep speaking out in the international arena,” Wong said in an August 2020 article in The Guardian he co-wrote with fellow activist Glacier Kwong Chung-ching.
In an article published in the Financial Times on September 29, 2020, Wong urged local and overseas companies to “consider diversifying their markets to avoid overdependence on China”, noting that they “still have the leverage to call for more human rights and freedom protections” in Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, the activist helped Law to publicise an online petition in July 2020 calling on Israel-based forensic company Cellebrite to stop providing phone-hacking technology to Hong Kong police and related security agencies.
The company acceded to the demand three months later, stating in a press release that it would stop selling its products to Hong Kong and the mainland.
In a “presentencing work report” published on November 22, 2020, Wong revealed that he had also written to electronics giants Sony and Apple to warn them against business ties with Beijing.
Prosecutors said the activist’s role in the conspiracy only ended when he was remanded in custody on November 23 that year for his involvement in an unlawful assembly in 2019.
The activist, who has been detained since then, was initially expected to complete his sentence on January 7 next year, but was charged in the present case on June 6 last year.
In mitigation, defence counsel Derek Chan Ching-lung SC said prosecutors’ delay in charging his client with collusion meant the pending sentence would be almost entirely consecutive to his previous jail term for subversion, making the overall sentence “crushing”.
Chan said Wong had “matured substantially” during his six years in custody and urged the court to impose the most lenient sentence possible to allow the activist to “have an end in sight and some hope and a future to look forward to”.
“He has had a lengthy opportunity to reflect upon his actions, to reflect upon the path he took, the consequences of his actions and the views he held,” the lawyer said.
“He still holds the positive attitude that one day he will be released from prison, where he can still have a positive life and take care of his ageing parents.”
Collusion with foreign forces carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment under the national security law, with a minimum jail term of 10 years applicable for serious offences. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
