Fn inside Hong Kong’s oldest maximum security prison, where he trades books with Triad gang members and studies law, Joshua Wong writes letters like a man desperate to stay connected to the outside world.
Excerpts from his writings in a private prison reveal the pro-democracy activist asking his friends to take screenshots of social media accounts and ask AI chatbots questions on his behalf.
To an acquaintance he wrote about his reading habits in prison. “Some old-school triad leaders here have also lent me books,” he says in letters to friends, seen exclusively by the Guardian. “They read it too. One of them lent me The Godfather by Mario Puzo (lol).”
Wong, 30, who rose to prominence as the teenage face of Hong Kong’s now-crushed democracy movement, has been jailed since November 2020.
On Thursday, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for foreign collusion, his second conviction under the national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020. Wong pleaded guilty to the charge in September.
Wong is the only pro-democracy activist to have been prosecuted twice under national security legislation. He was due to be released in January, before the latest prosecutions, and will now serve his two sentences concurrently.
Although he spent his 21st, 25th and 30th birthdays in prison, Wong’s letters – written between August and October – show his determination and constant concern about the future of Hong Kong.
“The only thing that worries me is that people will forget Hong Kong, and in the midst of great power competition and struggles, they will forget the countless ordinary and unknown people in different places who paid the price for their beliefs,” he wrote.
At Stanley Prison, where young inmates use M&Ms as currency, he spends time exercising, learning to play guitar, and teaching English to other inmates.
“I was teaching English to a Russian,” he said in a letter. “When he asked me what the word ‘totalitarian’ meant, I simply answered ‘Putin’ (lol).”
Books seem to be at the heart of his life. His reading list includes Patriot, the memoir of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison in 2024; biographies of Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandela, Benjamin Franklin; and the memoir of Gary Stevenson, a former Citibank trader turned YouTuber and activist against inequality.
On the day of the US presidential election in November 2024, he watched the votes come in while holding a copy of JD Vance’s best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.
Wong gained international attention during the 2014 Umbrellas protests, which paralyzed the city’s financial center and galvanized an entire generation of young people. In October 2014, he appeared – with his signature black-rimmed glasses – on the cover of Time magazine under the headline: “The Face of Protest.”
When protests erupted in 2019 against an extradition bill, Wong was serving a prison sentence for his role in the 2014 protests. He was released at the height of the protests and immediately took to the streets.
In 2020, Beijing said the introduction of the national security law was necessary to restore stability in the former British colony, but critics said it gave authorities sweeping powers to crack down on free speech and dissent.
Since then, activists and journalists have been arrested, independent newsrooms have been closed and much of the city’s political opposition has been forced into exile. There have been more than 400 arrests under national security laws, according to Hong Kong’s security bureau.
“Joshua’s case is part of an attempt to control how my generation’s political history is remembered,” says Frances Hui, a childhood friend and exiled pro-democracy activist.
“For years, people around the world could hear him argue, organize and explain what he thought Hong Kong’s future should be. Today, we barely hear from him.”
In his letters, Wong claims that Mandela inspired him to study law and that he enrolled in an undergraduate course in corporate law.
He says he’s lost weight, but is following a strict routine of pull-ups, squats and push-ups. He also reads the Bible and recites passages from the book of Joshua and Corinthians.
Wong’s childhood friends and fellow activists say the Hong Kong they once fought for no longer exists.
“It’s hard to say whose time it is,” said another childhood friend, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Hui says Hong Kong authorities waited nearly five years after the alleged crime to prosecute Wong – just before his release.
“By the time he sees freedom, he will definitely not be the young boy we once remembered,” she said.
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