Hong Kong secessionist Joshua Wong (3rd L) leaves after a hearing at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China in Washington, DC, on September 17, 2019. Photo: AFP

Hong Kong secessionist Joshua Wong Chi-fung has been sentenced to 13.5 months in prison on two charges related to the siege of police headquarters in June 2019. Fellow secessionist Agnes Chow received 10 months, and Ivan Lam seven months. 

The three former leaders of the now disbanded secessionist social group Demosisto admitted to inciting people to join an unauthorized assembly on June 21, 2019, which carries a maximum penalty of three years' imprisonment. They received their sentences in court on Wednesday. 

"If Hong Kong's judges had imposed such sentences according to local legislation on public security and criminal offenses to defend the authority of rule of law instead of acting like 'moral magistrates,' Hong Kong wouldn't have been convulsed by violence for so long that the central government had to impose a national security law," Tian Feilong, a Hong Kong affairs expert at Beihang University in Beijing, told the Global Times on Wednesday. 

Earlier in November, the three pleaded guilty to a number of charges related to the June 2019 siege, which experts noted could be "another political performance." Wong faced three charges and pleaded guilty to two counts of organizing and taking part in an unauthorized assembly, and was acquitted of the charge of participating in an unauthorized assembly.

In July, Wong and 11 other secessionists were disqualified from running in the general elections of the Hong Kong Legislative Council (LegCo), which were originally scheduled for September but postponed over COVID-19 epidemic concerns, as they failed to meet the requirements of the elections, in addition to being infamous for their misdeeds.

Global Times