《TAIPEI TIMES》Lai expresses solidarity with arrested HK booksellers

An independent bookstore employee is led away by policemen after officers raided the Have A Nice Stay bookshop in Hong Kong on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

Staff writer, with CNA, AP and Reuters, HONG KONG President William Lai （賴清德） yesterday expressed solidarity with independent bookstore owners and urged Hong Kong to respect diverse views after authorities in the territory on Wednesday raided two bookstores and arrested five people on suspicion of selling allegedly seditious publications.

Videos and photos from local media showed officers wearing vests marked with “Police” seizing boxes from the building housing Have A Nice Stay, a bookshop in the territory’s Mong Kok area founded by former journalists. A bookseller was seen being taken away.

A few streets away a similar scene played out, with boxes taken from the building housing Greenfield Book Store, according to a video by online news outlet The Collective.

Police said in a statement that they raided two stores in the territory’s Mong Kok District, without identifying them, and arrested two men, aged 37 and 57, and three women, aged 30 to 59, on suspicion of breaching the 2024 Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.

It is the third round of arrests linked to independent bookstores after similar operations in March and last month that were widely seen as stifling dissent in the territory.

Police said that 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.”

It added that the publications involved incited hatred against Hong Kong’s government, the judiciary and law enforcement agencies.

Lai wrote on Facebook that every independent bookstore is an important space for safeguarding thought, and when books risk becoming incriminating evidence and bookstores are forced to self-censor, freedom of expression and public discourse are curtailed.

“We would like to express our concern and respect to all bookstore staff and cultural workers who stand their ground in adversity. Words and ideas should not be shackled by political pressure,” he said.

“Taiwan will continue safeguarding its hard-won democracy and freedom. We hope that diverse voices and basic rights in Hong Kong are treated with due respect and protection,” Lai said.

Have A Nice Stay had already announced it would shut down on Aug. 30.

It wrote on social media that financial difficulties and an elusive red line were among the factors.

Amnesty International Asia deputy regional director Sarah Brooks said the use of “sedition” offenses to target bookstores demonstrated how the territory’s national security framework “is being weaponized to silence dissenting voices and eradicate spaces for free thought.”

“This year’s escalating attacks on Hong Kong’s independent bookstores hammer home the chilling reality of what the city has become: a place where you can be criminalized simply for what’s on your bookshelf,” she said.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES