Hong Kong activists Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam sentenced to jail

Image from the Stand News. Used with permission.

Prominent Hong Kong activists Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, and Ivan Lam were sentenced to prison on December 2 on charges of organizing an unauthorised protest against police brutality outside the police headquarters in June 2019.

Wong was sentenced to 13.5 months, Chow to 10 months, and Lam to 7 months behind bars. The trio pleaded guilty to the charges last week in their first trial and had been in police custody since, as the court rejected their bail applications.

Via his lawyer, Wong tweeted:

Chow burst out into tears in court as her application to be released on bail until an appeal was denied. The activist celebrates her 24th birthday on December 3. Her social media acquaintances tweeted:

Exiled Hong Kong activist Nathan Law made plead for international solidarity with his three friends, and urged Washington to keep the pressure on China in regards to Hong Kong:

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a cross-party group of legislators primarily from European and North American countries focused on relations with China, issued a statement condemning the sentence:

The punishments given are illegitimate and wholly disproportionate with the actions that the Hong Kong authorities claim to be crimes.
This sentence has made a mockery of the rule of law in the city and demonstrates the continued determination of the Chinese government to deny Hong Kong citizens the fundamental freedoms promised to them in the hong Kong Basic Law and Sino-British Joint Declaration. […]

The United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab urged Beijing to stop the crackdown on political dissent in Hong Kong:

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen praised the three young activists for their courage:

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee described the sentence as “despicable:”

AFP tweeted a detailed illustration showing the escalation of Hong Kong's crackdown on dissent:

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