HONG KONG - National security police have arrested five Hong Kong booksellers on charges of “committing an act with seditious intention”, the government said in a statement late on Wednesday.
The city’s once-flourishing independent bookstore industry has dwindled since Beijing imposed sweeping national security legislation on the city in 2020.
Many of the stores, which offered a broader range of political and social titles than those found in mainstream shops, had become vital outlets for local civil society groups by hosting book talks and workshops.
Police said they received a referral from Hong Kong’s customs department stating that a “batch of books with seditious intention was intercepted inside a consignment shipped to Hong Kong from overseas”.
Information on the titles and content of the books in question was not immediately available.
Officers searched two shops in Mong Kok, located in the city’s bustling Kowloon district, and arrested two men, aged 37 and 57, and three women, aged 30 to 59, the statement said.
“Police investigations revealed that the five arrestees are suspected of displaying items with seditious intent and selling publications with seditious content inside the shops,” the statement noted.
It added that the publications involved incited hatred against Hong Kong’s government, the judiciary, and law enforcement agencies. “A batch of books with seditious intention was seized from the shops.”
The South China Morning Post identified the bookstores as Have a Nice Stay and Greenfield Bookstore. The former had announced on Tuesday that it would close on Aug 30, citing financial losses and an “elusive red line” over what books may be considered problematic.
The arrests come after police in June arrested two owners of a bookshop in a separate case, who authorities said were displaying and selling publications with “seditious” content.
Yalkun Uluyol, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in response to the arrests that “democratic governments should press the Hong Kong authorities to free these booksellers”.
Vietnamese publishers held
In a related development, police in Vietnam said on Wednesday they had arrested three executives of a publishing house that released a book on Ho Chi Minh, the revered founder of the country’s Communist Party.
The author of Stories with Thanh - A New Account of Light, former telecom executive Nguyen Thanh Nam, was arrested on anti-state charges earlier in July, along with an influencer who promoted the book on his social media channels.
The book, which has been recalled by its publisher under pressure from authorities, recounts Ho Chi Minh’s years abroad seeking ways to spark national liberation back home.
Hanoi police said on Wednesday they had arrested the director, editor-in-chief and head of the editorial board of the Vietnam Writers’ Association Publishing House, which published the book in May.
Like author Nam, they face charges of “producing, possessing, distributing or disseminating information, documents or items aimed at opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”, according to a police statement.
“All three were involved in editing, revising, publishing, and promoting the book… which distorts the history of the revolutions, the policies and guidelines of the party and state,” the statement said.
