Hong Kong police raid independent bookshops and arrest five over alleged seditious books

Hong Kong police have raided two independent bookshops and arrested five people suspected of selling or displaying publications deemed seditious. Authorities said the books were considered to have incited hatred against the government, the judiciary and law enforcement agencies. Officers also seized books from both shops during the operation.

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The five suspects include two men aged 37 and 57, and three women aged between 30 and 59. Police said they are being held for investigation under national security legislation for allegedly acting with seditious intent. If convicted, they could face up to seven years in prison.

Officials did not publicly name the businesses targeted in the raids. One of the shops seen by reporters was Have A Nice Stay in the Mong Kok district, where officers were observed taking a woman away in handcuffs and loading confiscated items into a van. The shop was founded in 2022 by former journalists and sells books on democracy, authoritarianism and media literacy.

It had announced a day earlier that it would close in August, citing financial reasons and what it described as an elusive red line over problematic material. Local media also reported that Greenfield Book Store was targeted. The shop says it stocks books from Hong Kong and Taiwan covering literature, history, philosophy, art, sociology and self-improvement.

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Neither business is taking part in this year's Hong Kong Book Fair, which opened on Wednesday, placing the raids during a period when books and publishing are already in public focus. The arrests add to wider concern about how national security rules are being applied in Hong Kong's cultural and publishing sectors. The authorities have increasingly treated material seen as politically sensitive as a matter of criminal enforcement, and booksellers have said the boundaries are unclear.

That uncertainty has become a practical issue for shops deciding what to stock, what to display and whether to remain open. There have been two other bookshop raids in Hong Kong this year, with two workers arrested at the Hunter store in June and four people arrested from Book Punch in March. Amnesty International said the latest raids reflected the chilling reality of a city where people can be criminalised for what is on their bookshelf.

What remains unclear is whether further arrests will follow, what specific titles were seized, and how the cases will proceed through the courts.

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