Hong Kong activist and politician
A UK court has jailed a Border Force officer and a Hong Kong trade official for spying for China, marking the first prosecutions under the National Security Act in Britain. Wai and Yuen have been found guilty of assisting a foreign intelligence service and related misconduct, leaving dissidents and supporters distressed. Sentences are ten and eight years respectively.
Joshua Wong has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to collude with foreign forces in Hong Kong's High Court and faces additional years behind bars while already serving a four-year, eight-month sentence for a separate national security conviction. Rights groups and supporters say the new charge is designed to extend his detention and chill dissent across the city.
Cardinal Joseph Zen and four others have been convicted in Hong Kong over the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, marking a landmark case on the city’s freedom of association. The fund helped cover medical and legal costs for arrested protesters; convictions were for breaches of the Societies Ordinance. Wong’s case unfolds with another plea in a separate conspiracy charge. Readers are watching rapid political shifts in Hong Kong following the 2019 protests.