Joshua Wong Arrested Again While Serving Sentence: A Grim Symbol of One Country, Two Systems’ Total Collapse

On June 6, 2025, Joshua Wong, Hong Kong’s most recognizable young pro-democracy activist, was arrested again while already serving a prison sentence. He was charged under the National Security Law (NSL) for allegedly colluding with foreign forces during a period between July and November 2020. The alleged co-conspirators include fellow exile Nathan Law and others overseas.

The new charges carry the maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Though technically not a violation of the principle of double jeopardy, the act of doubling up charges against Joshua Wong—years after the alleged acts occurred and while he is still serving time—reveals the regime’s true intent: to ensure that he never leaves prison, and to wipe away any remaining space for dissent.

I Knew Joshua Wong Before the World Did

I first came to know Joshua Wong in 2012, when he was still a teenager. That year, he rose to prominence by leading the movement against the Hong Kong government's proposed "Moral and National Education" curriculum—a thinly veiled brainwashing project. He was the head of Scholarism, a student group that ignited public resistance across the city. Even at that young age, he impressed me as a polite, thoughtful, and dynamic person, capable of clear reasoning and a remarkable calm under pressure.

Over the past 13 years, I have witnessed his growth—from a high school student to an international voice for Hong Kong’s freedom. That voice is now being silenced not only by physical incarceration, but by a regime determined to bury his influence forever.

Political Lawfare Dressed as Justice

Wong is currently serving a 56-month sentence stemming from his involvement in an unofficial democratic primary in 2020, which authorities claim violated the NSL’s subversion clause. He was due to be released in early 2027.

But the regime clearly has no intention of allowing that to happen.

The new NSL charges, dropped from above like a sword of Damocles, now threaten him with life behind bars. They relate to the same general time period as his current charges, yet are being re-packaged under different legal terminology to extend his captivity indefinitely.

This is not justice. This is authoritarian engineering of judicial outcomes.

The practice of stacking charges—of returning to prosecute an already-imprisoned activist for events in the same historical arc—destroys the world’s confidence in Hong Kong’s legal system. It is clear to all observers that the law has become a tool of oppression, not a guardian of fairness.

A Vanishing Hope

Joshua Wong’s fate is starting to resemble that of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama, who was taken by the Chinese government in 1995 at the age of six and has not been seen since. Though Wong may not be physically disappeared, he is being disappeared in another way—through confinement, silence, and erasure of memory. His imprisonment is meant to make us forget him.

But I won’t forget. None of us should.

The Death of One Country, Two Systems—and of Hong Kong as We Knew It

This is more than the destruction of one young man’s future. This is the symbolic death of "One Country, Two Systems"—a promise made to the people of Hong Kong and the international community that has been shredded in front of the world’s eyes.

Once, Hong Kong stood as a proud international city, governed by the rule of law, open society, and civil liberties. Today, it is a city where political prisoners languish for acts of speech, where laws are rewritten to serve the interests of power, and where even the memory of resistance is criminalized.

The world is watching, and the conclusion is clear: Hong Kong has no future as a free city under the current regime. The doubling of charges against Joshua Wong isn’t just a legal maneuver—it’s a moral indictment of a system that has chosen control over conscience.

Joshua Wong's story is not over, but it has reached a chapter that reflects the sorrow, rage, and despair of an entire generation.

We must remember him. We must speak his name. And we must continue the fight he helped begin.