Time.news – Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong was sentenced to ten months in prison for participating in the vigil to commemorate the victims of last year’s Tiananmen Square massacre, which was not authorized by the police.
Wong was sentenced along with three other pro-democracy activists from Hong Kong, who received sentences ranging from four to six months in prison. The four pleaded guilty to illegal assembly last week and faced a sentence of up to five years.
According to Judge Stanely Chan, who pronounced the sentence, their actions were “deliberate and premeditated” and the only extenuating circumstance was pleading guilty. Hong Kong banned the annual vigil to commemorate the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre for the first time in 30 years – held in Victoria Park and has always been the only one allowed on Chinese soil – citing health reasons linked to the risk of spreading Covid-19.
The four are the first of a group of 26 people who will have to answer for an illegal assembly for last year’s vigil, even though two of them have already left Hong Kong and are wanted, including activist Nathan Law, who lives today. in London.
Joshua Wong has been in jail since last December, when he was sentenced to one year, one month and two weeks in prison for illegal assembly in connection with the siege of the Wan Chai police station on Hong Kong Island in the first weeks of the pro-democracy protests in June 2019.
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