Three of the faces of the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests have been detained and are awaiting their sentences after pleading guilty to unauthorized assembly charges over a 2019 protest.
Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, and Ivan Lam made their plea on Monday. All three were members of the since-disbanded student activism group Demosisto. They were immediately jailed and will receive their sentences next week.
The protest took place in June 2019, with thousands surrounding police headquarters calling for an investigation into police brutality. Later that day, some demonstrators threw eggs at the headquarters and marked the walls with graffiti. Scores of Hongkongers took to the streets that year to protest the introduction of a bill that would have allowed residents of the city to be extradited to mainland China.
Wong plead guilty to two charges of inciting and organizing an unauthorized assembly. According to the New York Times, he faces a sentence of up to three years in prison for the charges. However, he has maintained his innocence in a separate charge related to participating in an unauthorized assembly.
“Everyone hang in there! Add oil,” Wong shouted as he was taken away, using a Cantonese expression of encouragement often heard during protests.
The illegal assembly charges were not related to a national security law for the city imposed by China earlier this year. That law criminalizes acts of subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces, and terrorism with sentences of up to life in prison. Offenders can also be extradited to mainland China for trial. The law was written so vaguely that it has been used to target dissidents to the Chinese government.
Wong, Chow, and Lam were charged with unauthorized assembly under a preexisting statute. Wong is also facing unauthorized assembly charges for two other protests.
Before he was detained, Wong tweeted the Bible verses Romans 5:3-4, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”
9/ “We rejoice in our sufferings,” Romans 5:3-4 reads, “knowing that suffering produces endurance. and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” Once sown, seeds will one day sprout. Weary and distraught as some of you might feel, please have each others’ backs.
— Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 ? (@joshuawongcf) November 22, 2020
