Ben

In September 2019, Lantos Foundation president @LantosSwettK presented the Lantos Human Rights Prize medal to Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong on the steps of the US Capitol. He had been awarded the Prize nearly a year earlier, but the Hong Kong authorities had seized his passport so he could not attend the ceremony in DC. In November 2020, barely a year later, Joshua was arrested in Hong Kong and began the start of what has stretched into nearly six years of unjust imprisonment, under the guise of Hong Kong’s tyrannical National Security Law. Today, Joshua was sentenced to an additional 10 years in prison, the only person to be prosecuted and convicted twice under the National Security Law. Joshua had just celebrated his 24th birthday when he went into prison. The CCP now wants to keep him behind bars until he is 40. Joshua Wong advocated courageously and peacefully for democracy and freedom in Hong Kong. He should never have been imprisoned at all, let alone for the decade this new sentence hands him. Yes, we call on the Hong Kong government to release Joshua, but this outrage demands more than advocacy; it demands action from the world’s democracies. We call on democratic leaders to tell Xi Jinping to free Joshua Wong now and to ensure that Beijing faces real consequences, e.g., restrictions on visas for Chinese students, if Hong Kong continues to imprison him unjustly.