Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong’s second national security case will be transferred to the High Court, where he may face life imprisonment if convicted.
Wearing a white T-shirt and a black jacket, Wong appeared at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Friday.
He is currently serving an almost five-year jail sentence under the Beijing-imposed national security law in a case linked to unofficial primaries.
While still in prison, he was arrested in June and charged with a second national security offence. The 28-year-old was accused of conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and “other persons unknown” between July 1 and November 23, 2020, to request foreign countries or individuals to engage in hostile activities against Hong Kong or China.
National security judge Victor So confirmed that Wong’s case would be adjourned until September 5 for committal proceedings before the case is transferred from the magistrates’ court, the city’s lowest-level court, to the High Court.
Wong has not indicated how he will plead. Most national security law cases in Hong Kong have taken place in the High Court, where defendants face up to life imprisonment if convicted.
One of Hong Kong’s most high-profile pro-democracy activists, Wong rose to prominence as a student leader during a 2012 protest against the government’s plan to introduce “moral and national education” in local schools, when he was in secondary school, and later during the Umbrella Movement in 2014, weeks after he started university.
Members of foreign consulates, including those of the EU, the US, and France, were in attendance at the court hearing on Friday.
There was also a heavier-than-usual police presence around the court building, with at least one police dog spotted.
Wong has been in remand since November 23, 2020, over a 2019 protest-related case, which led to a 13.5-month jail sentence in December that year.
He pleaded guilty to conspiring to subvert state power in the city’s largest national security case and was sentenced in November to four years and eight months.
