Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong wins appeal to reduce jail sentence by 2 months over role in banned Tiananmen vigil
- Court of Appeal rules in favour of Wong, judges order reduction, plus two months from unauthorised assembly sentence to be served concurrently with two other cases
- Activist awaits national security trial for alleged role in unofficial Legislative Council primary election in 2020
The Court of Appeal on Wednesday also ordered that two months of the sentence should be served concurrently with the 17½ months he had received for two other cases.
The rulings by Justices Maggie Poon Man-kay and Anthea Pang Po-kam shortened Wong’s current sentence to 23½ months, for his involvement in three unauthorised assemblies since the social unrest began in 2019.
Wong was jailed for 10 months in May, after admitting that he had knowingly taken part in an unauthorised assembly, an offence punishable by up to five years in prison, at Victoria Park in Causeway Bay on June 4, 2020.
The District Court previously heard that the candlelight vigil drew about 20,000 participants, despite police banning the annual event for the first time since 1990 amid concerns over the risk of Covid-19 infections.
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During sentencing for Wong’s role in the vigil, Judge Stanley Chan Kwong-chi had said that his guilty plea was the only mitigating factor since he had “openly defied the law” with his deliberate and premeditated involvement.
At the High Court on Wednesday, Wong’s counsel Steven Kwan Man-wai conceded that imprisonment was warranted in the present case, but argued that Chan had imposed a “manifestly excessive” jail term.
Kwan submitted that a more appropriate starting point for sentencing would have been 11 months, instead of the 15 months ordered by Chan, before considering the application of a one-third discount in recognition of Wong’s timely guilty plea.
But acting senior assistant director of public prosecutions William Siu Kai-yip countered that the sentence was “totally justified”, as Wong was a repeat offender and had played a “very active” role in the incident – by giving interviews and uploading photos to social media – while on court bail.
Jail time extended for Hong Kong activist twice convicted over Tiananmen vigils
“He repeatedly disregarded the law,” Siu added, arguing that Wong had also taken part in an anti-mask rally and flouted a government-imposed ban on facial coverings in October 2019, for which he was jailed for another four months last April.
The prosecutor also said Chan was justified in ordering the 10-month sentence to run consecutively to the previous two jail terms because the three cases were separated by time and objective.
But the higher court sided with Wong and allowed his appeal.
Wong’s co-defendant, 27-year-old former district councillor Jannelle Rosalynne Leung, who completed her sentence in July, also challenged her four-month jail term but was unsuccessful.
The court will give their reasons for the decision in a judgment to be handed down at a later date.
