Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong announced today that he will plead guilty to the trial over a pro-democracy demonstration held last year and found illegal by local authorities.
Joshua Wong, 24, and two other activists, Ivan Lam and Agnes Chow, are on trial for organizing a demonstration outside the Hong Kong police headquarters last summer.
“The three of us decided to plead guilty on all counts (…) I would not be surprised if I were arrested today,” Wong told reporters when he arrived at the court this morning.
“I will plead guilty to the infractions, including organizing and participating in an unauthorized demonstration, for which the maximum penalty is five years,” he said, in a note sent to some journalists, and that Lusa had access to.
“We will continue to fight for freedom, and this is not the time to flatten ourselves before Beijing or to surrender,” continued the young man, who in 2014 was the face of the ‘yellow umbrella’ movement.
Joshua Wong denounced the arrest of 23 activists, journalists and advisers in the past three weeks.
“Every day we have activists on trial, protesters sent to prison,” according to the same note.
“Under continuous attacks against dissidents in the city, generations of young people range from protests to prisons. To safeguard the freedom of the place where we were born, they all made a silent sacrifice, but without regret. Some of them were tortured, forced into exile, ”he said.
Pro-democracy mobilization in the Chinese semi-autonomous region was very strong until the end of last year with demonstrations that reached up to two million people, according to the organizers of the protests.
In June, Beijing’s response to the protests in Hong Kong came with the imposition of a security law in the Chinese special administrative region, which prompted activists to take refuge in the United Kingdom and Taiwan.
The law punishes subversive activities, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, with penalties that can go to life in prison.
