Hong Kong: Joshua Wong Case Taken to the UN as Rights Groups Seek Ruling That Detention Is Arbitrary

The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice and the Human Rights Foundation filed an individual complaint on Friday (November 13) with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, asking it to declare the continued detention of Hong Kong pro-democracy figure Joshua Wong arbitrary and in violation of international law, and to call on the Hong Kong government to release him immediately and unconditionally. Wong was given an additional 10-year sentence under the National Security Law, overturning his expected release in January 2027. (Photo: Joshua Wong outside the Legislative Council building in Hong Kong in 2019, file photo. Image: Associated Press.)

Complaint: detention is arbitrary and unlawful

In their petition, the two organisations detail numerous human rights violations and argue that Hong Kong's National Security Law is designed to extinguish dissent; at least 200 people have been detained under the law since it came into force in 2020. Lantos Foundation president Katrina Lantos Swett noted that Wong co-founded Scholarism at the age of 14, successfully campaigning against the Beijing-backed Moral and National Education curriculum, and at 17 was one of the leaders of the 2014 Umbrella Movement, calling for free and fair elections.

Four years and eight months in the Hong Kong 47 case, then 10 more years

Wong announced in June 2020 that he would run for a seat in Hong Kong's legislature, and in January 2021 he was arrested alongside 46 others in the largest case under the National Security Law to date, the "Hong Kong 47" case. On November 19, 2024, he was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison for "conspiracy to commit subversion" over attempting to organise and run in the primaries. About 18 months before his projected release, the Hong Kong government charged him again under the National Security Law, this time for "collusion with foreign forces" over conduct between July 1 and November 23, 2020, when he met democratic governments and asked them to denounce the decline of freedoms in Hong Kong; he was given an additional 10 years, of which two months and two days run concurrently with his existing sentence, effectively adding nearly a decade behind bars. Wong turned 30 last month, having spent most of his twenties in prison. This site reported the additional 10-year sentence on November 5. (Sources: Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice; Human Rights Foundation.)