Prince Wong Ji-Yuet 黃子悅

Wong Ji-Yuet is a Hong Kong activist and former spokesperson of Scholarism (學民思潮), a student organization active in the fields of Hong Kong’s education policy, political reform and youth policy. After Scholarism disbanded in 2016, she founded TheEduLab (教育實驗學社) to continue her activism on education issues.

In 2014, Wong participated in the Umbrella movement as a form six student. As a volunteer of Scholarism, she joined the class boycott rally on Sept. 26, 2014 to advocate for democratic reforms and broke into Civic Square with other demonstrators which began the page of a 79-day long occupying movement, known as the Umbrella Movement. Students like her would sleep on the streets in the occupation zones at night and go to school during the day, maintaining this routine for more than a month. [1] After two months of occupation, Wong began a hunger strike with two Scholarism members, Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) and Isabella Lo (盧彥慧) to initiate a negotiation with the government on Hong Kong’s electoral reform. Wong ended the hunger strike after 118 hours based on medical intervention and was hospitalized. [2]

During the 2019 anti-extradition bill movement, Wong had been outspoken on the issues of police brutality, in particular to sexual harrassment and discrimination towards female protesters. On Nov. 18, 2019, Wong joined a rally in support of the people trapped inside the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) during the police’s siege of the campus. She was among those arrested during a mass police crackdown and hundreds that were subsequently charged with “rioting.” She was convicted and sentenced to 37 months in prison in July 2023. [3]

In July 2020, Wong participated in the pro-democracy primaries where she garnered 22,911 votes — third in place — and secured a nomination for the upcoming legislative elections.[4] The election was later postponed by the Hong Kong government, citing the resurgence of the COVID-19 cases. [5]

On Jan. 6, 2021, Wong was arrested along with 54 other pro-democracy figures, on suspicion of conspiracy to commit subversion under the National Security Law for participating in the election and was charged on Feb. 28, 2021.[6] After 10 months of detention, she was granted bail on Dec. 21, 2021. [7] While on bail, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from Lingnan University in 2022. [8] Her bail was revoked on March 6, 2023, after she pleaded guilty to her rioting charge involving the 2019 PolyU clash and has been in custody since then.

She pleaded guilty to the subversion charge involving her participation in the primary election. On Nov. 19, 2024, the court ruled that Wong was considered an active participant in the primary election. She was ultimately sentenced to 4 years and 5 months in prison, served separately from another sentence for rioting.[9]