Key Takeaways
- Canada joined Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States in the joint statement
- Joshua Wong was sentenced to 10 years in prison following a further charge under Hong Kong's National Security Law
- The allies call for an immediate end to unjust prosecutions and for the rights guaranteed under the Sino-British Joint Declaration to be honoured
Canada and Nine Allies Condemn 10-Year Sentence for Hong Kong's Joshua Wong
Canada Joins Nine Allies in Condemning Joshua Wong's 10-Year Sentence
Ten governments. One joint warning. And a growing confrontation over what political freedom means in Hong Kong.
Canada and nine allied countries have issued a joint statement condemning the 10-year prison sentence handed to Hong Kong pro-democracy figure Joshua Wong.
The statement, published November 6 by the foreign ministries of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, notes that Wong was sentenced "following a further charge under the National Security Law" — and that the sentence "comes just months after leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance were convicted under the same legislation."
The ten governments say the National Security Law "is being used to target individuals for political expression and participation."
They call for "an immediate end to all unjust prosecutions of individuals charged under the NSL," and urge China and the Hong Kong authorities "to uphold their international commitments and honour the rights and freedoms guaranteed to the people of Hong Kong under the Sino-British Joint Declaration (1984)."
But the statement itself does not announce any new measures to secure Wong's release.
Who Is Joshua Wong?
Wong, who rose to prominence as a teenage leader of Hong Kong's 2014 Umbrella Movement and co-founded the pro-democracy party Demosisto, has been in custody since 2021 and has faced a succession of cases under the security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020.
Canada has a direct stake in Hong Kong's freedoms: an estimated 300,000 Canadian citizens live there, one of the largest Canadian communities abroad.
The Twikup Take
Joint statements do not open prison doors, and all ten signatories know it.
What they do is put a marker down — ten democracies, on the record, refusing to let a 10-year sentence for a democracy campaigner pass as routine.
For the 300,000 Canadians in Hong Kong, that marker is not nothing.
Image: AI-generated illustration.