Key takeaways:
- Five people were arrested in Mong Kok on suspicion of violating national security legislation by acting with seditious intent.
- Police said the publications incited hatred against Hong Kong’s government, judiciary and law enforcement agencies.
- The raids followed similar arrests connected to independent bookshops in March and June; NPR reported those suspects were later released on bail.
Hong Kong police arrested five people after raiding two independent bookshops suspected of selling and displaying publications authorities described as seditious, marking the third round of arrests linked to local booksellers this year.
The five suspects — two men aged 37 and 57 and three women aged between 30 and 59 — were detained on suspicion of violating national security legislation by “acting with seditious intent,” officials said. If convicted, they could face up to seven years in prison.
Police said the publications incited “hatred” against Hong Kong’s government, judiciary and law enforcement agencies. Officers seized books from both shops, the government said in a statement. Police said customs officials referred the case after allegedly seditious books were found in a batch of goods shipped to Hong Kong from overseas, NPR reported. Authorities did not specify the titles.
Officials did not identify the businesses. Reporters from AFP saw officers leading a woman in handcuffs from Have A Nice Stay bookshop into a van. Videos and photos carried by multiple media outlets showed officers wearing vests marked “Police” removing boxes from the building that houses the store, which was founded in 2022 by a group of former journalists and stocks books on democracy, authoritarianism and media literacy.
A similar operation took place nearby at the building housing Greenfield Book Store, according to video from the online news outlet The Collective. Local media also reported that Greenfield was targeted. On its Facebook page, the shop says it carries books from Hong Kong and Taiwan on “literature, history, philosophy, art, sociology and self-improvement.”
Both shops are in Mong Kok, a densely packed district of Hong Kong. Neither is attending this year’s Hong Kong Book Fair, which opened Wednesday. The bookstores were closed during usual opening hours, NPR reported, and calls to Greenfield and a founder of Have A Nice Stay went unanswered.
Have A Nice Stay had announced a day before the raid that it would close on Aug. 30, citing financial difficulties and what it called an “elusive ‘red line’” over what material could be considered problematic.
The arrests follow two earlier police operations involving independent bookshops this year. In March, police arrested the owner and staff of Book Punch, reportedly on suspicion of selling seditious publications. NPR reported that the materials included a biography of former pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in his national security case. In June, police arrested two booksellers at Hunter on suspicion of selling seditious publications and receiving funds from foreign political organizations. NPR reported that all of those arrested in the March and June cases were later released on bail.
Amnesty International said the raids showed “the chilling reality of what the city has become: a place where you can be criminalised simply for what’s on your bookshelf.” The group said uncertainty over “so-called ‘red lines’” had left booksellers and writers “guessing which titles could lead to criminal investigation, arrest or closure,” resulting in fear and self-censorship.
Authorities say Hong Kong’s national security laws are necessary to maintain stability. NPR reported that Hong Kong Secretary for Security Chris Tang has said the government would not create a list of banned books, saying such a list would be pointless to implement in practice.
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