I stood once in a cramped bookshop in a city under pressure, watching a customer hesitate before slipping a slim volume into his bag. The owner caught my eye and shrugged. Some stories, he said, are heavier than they look. Yesterday in Hong Kong's Mong Kok district that weight became literal. Police moved on two independent stores, Have A Nice Stay and Greenfield Bookstore, arresting five people between the ages of 30 and 59.
The five, two men aged 37 and 57 and three women, now face investigation under Article 24 of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance. The charge centres on acts with seditious intention. Officers carried away boxes of books and other materials suspected of inciting hatred against the Hong Kong government, the judiciary and law enforcement. The timing was precise: the raids unfolded on 15 July as the annual Hong Kong Book Fair opened its doors a short distance away at the Convention and Exhibition Centre. Neither of the targeted shops was taking part.
Have A Nice Stay had announced the day before that it would close, citing financial strain and the exhaustion of trying to read ever-shifting red lines. Founded in 2022 by former journalists, the shop had built its shelves around titles on democracy, authoritarianism and media literacy. Its stock was never mass-market. It was the sort of place where people went looking for arguments rather than reassurance.
This is the third such operation in 2026. In March police hit Book Punch. In June they moved on Hunter Bookstore. Each time the stated concern is the same: publications that might stir discontent. Each time the practical result is narrower air for anyone who sells ideas by the spine.
The pattern does more than remove individual titles. It teaches caution. Booksellers learn to second-guess inventories. Readers learn which questions are safer left unasked. Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International's deputy regional director for East and Southeast Asia, put the human cost plainly.
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 criminalised simply for what is on your bookshelf. Booksellers should never face arrest simply for doing their jobs: selling, publishing or distributing books. The use of ‘sedition’ offences to target bookstores once again demonstrates how Hong Kong’s national security framework is being weaponised to silence dissenting voices and eradicate spaces for free thought and debate.
Brooks continued: The growing uncertainty over so-called ‘red lines’ for booksellers leaves publishers and writers guessing which titles could lead to criminal investigation, arrest or closure. Such ambiguity is intentional: fuelling fear and self-censorship, with devastating consequences for freedom of expression. Hong Kong’s authorities must immediately stop using national security and sedition laws to criminalise the peaceful exercise of human rights, and ensure that everyone in Hong Kong can access, publish and share ideas without fear of arrest.