According to a post on Joshua Wong’s Facebook page, he was sentenced to three months in jail on Monday for leaking information about a police officer. Joshua Wong has been one of the most well-known democracy activists in Hong Kong in recent years.
The 26-year-old became well-known in 2014, when, as a young man with glasses, he took charge of student-led democracy protests that shut down roads in the city’s financial center for 79 days.
According to the post, he was given a sentence on Monday for breaking a court order not to share personal information about a police officer who opened fire at a protest in 2019.
A witness in court said that Wong was there but didn’t say anything.
The court did not release a written decision right away. On Monday, only a verbal sentence was given. Wong’s lawyer was not available to talk right away.
Who is Wong?
Wong got international backing for the pro-democracy movement in the former British colony. He did this by meeting with politicians from the U.S., Europe, and other places. This angered Beijing, which says he is a “black hand” of foreign forces.
Wong was considered for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his part in the 2014 protests, which were called the “Umbrella movement” because protesters used umbrellas to protect themselves from water cannons and tear gas.
The tweet below confirms the news:
Hong Kong activist Wong jailed for 3 months over information breach https://t.co/WS4Em5lE5k pic.twitter.com/8PuRNw0qrO
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 17, 2023
Wong is one of 47 pro-democracy people who have been charged with conspiracy to commit subversion because they took part in an unofficial primary election in 2020. This is because of a national security law that Beijing passed in 2020.
Western governments have criticized the law as a way to silence criticism, but Chinese and Hong Kong authorities say it has brought stability to the semi-autonomous financial hub after months of sometimes violent protests in 2019.
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