Hong Kong’s highest court has quashed the prison sentences handed down to Joshua Wong and two other young activists for their role in the Occupy protests of 2014, in a rare victory for the city’s democracy movement.

The Court of Final Appeal ruled on Tuesday that the non-custodial sentences originally given to Wong, Nathan Law and Alex Chow after they were convicted of illegal assembly for trying to storm government offices in 2016 were “not manifestly inadequate”. 

The Hong Kong government, which has come under increasing pressure from Beijing to crack down those who challenge its rule over the city, appealed for stricter sentences and, in August, the trio were sentenced at the city’s Court of Appeal to between six and eight months imprisonment.