Hong Kong’s Independent Bookstores Face Third Police Raid in Four Months as Five Arrested for ‘Seditious’ Publications

A Coordinated Crackdown on Literature

Hong Kong national security police raided two independent bookstores on July 15, 2026, arresting five people and seizing boxes of books in what has become the third such operation targeting the city’s beleaguered bookselling industry within just four months. The coordinated raids on Have A Nice Stay and Greenfield Book Store, both located in the densely packed Mong Kok district of Kowloon, represent the most recent escalation in a campaign that human rights organizations warn is transforming Hong Kong into a place where individuals can be criminalized simply for the contents of their bookshelves.

The five arrested individuals, two men aged 37 and 57 and three women between 30 and 59 years old, were taken into custody on suspicion of violating Hong Kong’s 2024 national security law by “acting with seditious intent.” Authorities alleged that the publications they displayed and sold incited hatred against the territory’s government, judiciary, and law enforcement agencies. If convicted, they could face up to seven years in prison. All five were released on bail two days later, on July 17, pending further investigation, though the legal proceedings against them continue.

The raids unfolded with visible police presence. Reporters from Agence France-Presse witnessed officers leading a handcuffed woman from Have A Nice Stay into a van, while video footage from online outlet The Collective showed similar scenes at Greenfield Book Store nearby, with officers in vests marked “Police” carrying boxes of seized materials from both locations. The operation had been triggered when customs officials discovered allegedly seditious books in an overseas shipment destined for Hong Kong, which they referred to the National Security Department.

The Bookshops at the Center of the Storm

Neither officially named by police, the targeted stores were quickly identified through media reports and witness accounts. Have A Nice Stay, founded in 2022 by a group of former journalists including veteran reporter Sum Wan-wah, had established itself as a space for literature on democracy, authoritarianism, and media literacy. Several of its founders had previously worked for Stand News, an independent online publication shut down by police in 2021. The shop’s very existence represented an attempt to preserve a corner of intellectual freedom in an increasingly constrained environment.

The timing of the raid carried particular poignancy. Just one day earlier, on July 14, Have A Nice Stay had announced on social media that it would close permanently on August 30, citing financial difficulties and what it described as an “elusive ‘red line'” over what material might be considered problematic. The shop explained in its farewell message that it could not possibly read through every single book in its inventory and lacked the ability to judge which titles might cross into forbidden territory. The police raid effectively accelerated the closure that the owners had already reluctantly decided upon.

Greenfield Book Store, operating nearby, presented a different profile. According to its Facebook page, it stocked books from both Hong Kong and Taiwan covering literature, history, philosophy, art, sociology, and self-improvement. Its broader, more established presence in the community made it a natural companion target in the police operation. Neither business was participating in the Hong Kong Book Fair, which opened on July 16, the day after the raids, a decision that now appears prescient.

The specific titles that drew official ire remained officially undisclosed, though sources cited by the South China Morning Post mentioned books by the late opposition lawmaker Bottle Shiu Ka-chun and “Stay,” a memoir by former Democratic Party legislator Emily Lau Wai-hing, as suspected of promoting anti-government sentiment. This opacity around which books are problematic has become a defining feature of the current crackdown.

A Pattern of Increasing Pressure

The July raids did not emerge in isolation. They followed two previous waves of arrests targeting independent bookstores in 2026 alone. In March, four workers at Book Punch, another independent shop, were arrested on suspicion of selling seditious publications, including a biography of jailed pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in his national security case. In June, two employees at Hunter Bookstore were arrested on similar grounds, with the owner Letitia Wong and her husband additionally accused of receiving funds from foreign political organizations.

This pattern reflects a dramatic transformation from Hong Kong’s historical identity. The city was once renowned throughout Asia for its freedom of publication and expression, a status so established that mainland Chinese residents would cross the border specifically to purchase books too politically sensitive for their home market. Independent bookstores flourished as spaces where ideas could circulate freely, a legacy that stretched back decades and distinguished Hong Kong from the censorship-heavy environment across the border.

The erosion of this freedom connects to broader political changes following the massive anti-government protests of 2019. Beijing’s response included imposing a national security law in 2020, followed by Hong Kong’s own more comprehensive 2024 national security legislation, known as Article 23 or the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance. These laws criminalize acts including secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces, but their application has extended far beyond obvious security threats into areas of speech, publishing, and cultural expression that were previously protected.

The historical shadow of the 2015 Causeway Bay Books disappearances looms over current events. In late 2015, five booksellers associated with that shop, which specialized in gossipy, critical titles about Chinese Communist Party leaders, vanished. One of them, Lam Wing-kee, later revealed he had been kidnapped by Chinese authorities, held for months in solitary confinement, and forced to confess on television before being released. Lam fled to Taiwan in 2019 and died there in early July 2026 at age 70, his passing serving as a reminder of how long the pressure on Hong Kong’s booksellers has been building.

The Government’s Position: No List, No Clarity

Hong Kong’s Secretary for Security Chris Tang addressed the raids at a press conference on July 16, delivering a message that simultaneously asserted legal clarity and denied practical guidance. Tang insisted that booksellers bore responsibility for ensuring their merchandise did not endanger national security, employing a food safety analogy that drew criticism for its false equivalence. “If you are a bookseller, you have a responsibility to make sure the books you sell won’t endanger national security,” he stated. “It’s equal to, for example, when you are selling food, you need to ensure the food won’t cause a stomach ache and is not either poison or illegal.”

When asked whether authorities would compile a list of banned books to help sellers comply, Tang rejected the idea outright. He argued that such a list would be “pointless” and “not conducive to effective law enforcement,” claiming offenders could simply evade detection by changing wording or titles. “The law is very clear. If you break the law, you have crossed the red line,” he declared, while simultaneously maintaining that the specific location of that red line would remain deliberately undefined.

This refusal to specify prohibited content creates what legal scholars and human rights advocates describe as an intentional ambiguity designed to maximize deterrent effect. Without knowing which titles might trigger arrest, booksellers must either review every book in detail, an impossible task for small operations, or engage in preemptive self-censorship that excludes anything potentially objectionable. The result is a chilling effect that extends far beyond any specific banned titles to encompass whole categories of political, historical, and social commentary.

Tang’s insistence that authorities do not target specific sectors rang hollow given the exclusive focus on independent bookstores in recent enforcement actions. His broader warning that “if any shops or individuals engage in any activity that endangers national security, we will take enforcement action” served as a clear signal to all cultural and commercial operators in Hong Kong about the parameters of permissible activity.

International Reaction and the Taiwan Connection

The raids prompted swift international condemnation. Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director Sarah Brooks issued a strongly worded statement characterizing the operations as demonstrating “the chilling reality of what the city has become: a place where you can be criminalized simply for what’s on your bookshelf.” Brooks emphasized that booksellers should never face arrest for performing their professional duties of selling, publishing, or distributing books, and that the use of sedition offenses revealed how Hong Kong’s national security framework was being “weaponized to silence dissenting voices and eradicate spaces for free thought and debate.”

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.

The ambiguity around red lines, Brooks argued, was not an unintended consequence but a deliberate strategy to fuel fear and self-censorship with devastating consequences for freedom of expression. Amnesty called for immediate cessation of using national security and sedition laws to criminalize peaceful rights exercise.

Perhaps the most pointed response came from Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy that China claims as its own territory. President Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing considers a “separatist,” posted on Facebook that “every independent bookstore is vital in guarding free thought.” He expressed concern and respect for “all bookstores and cultural workers who continue to stand their ground in difficult circumstances,” adding that “thought and writing should not be imprisoned because of political pressure.”

Liang Wen-chieh, deputy minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, revealed that the pressure was already affecting cross-strait cultural exchange, with some Taiwanese publishers self-censoring their offerings when participating in Hong Kong’s book fair. This admission illustrated how Hong Kong’s shrinking space for expression was creating ripple effects throughout the Chinese-speaking cultural world, potentially isolating the city’s readers from controversial perspectives originating elsewhere.

The Mechanics of the 2024 National Security Law

Understanding the current crackdown requires grasping how Hong Kong’s legal framework has evolved. The 2024 Safeguarding National Security Ordinance built upon Beijing’s 2020 national security law, which was imposed directly on Hong Kong after the 2019 protests. While the 2020 law established broad crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces, the 2024 legislation filled in details and expanded authorities’ powers in ways that particularly affect expression and publishing.

The concept of “seditious intention,” which carries a seven-year maximum sentence, derives from colonial-era laws that were rarely invoked in modern Hong Kong but have been revitalized under the new security framework. Under current interpretation, this offense encompasses not just active incitement to violence or overthrow of government, but also expression that “stirs up hatred” against authorities or institutions. The elastic nature of this standard allows prosecutors wide discretion in determining which books cross the line.

The customs referral mechanism that initiated the July raids represents another significant feature of the current system. Books shipped from overseas are subject to inspection, and customs officials can flag materials for national security investigation before they even reach bookstore shelves. This creates a bottleneck that affects not just local publishing but the importation of international perspectives, effectively extending Hong Kong’s content controls to encompass the global flow of ideas.

The refusal to compile banned lists, defended by Tang as practical enforcement necessity, inverts traditional rule of law principles. Normally, legal systems strive to give citizens clear notice of prohibited conduct so they can comply. Hong Kong’s approach instead relies on post-hoc enforcement, where the boundaries become visible only through prosecution, creating what critics call “rule by law” rather than “rule of law.”

What Happens to Hong Kong’s Literary Culture

The cumulative effect of these pressures is transforming Hong Kong’s cultural landscape in ways that may prove difficult to reverse. Independent bookstores, already operating on thin margins in an age of digital reading and online retail, now face existential legal risk that makes their continued operation a calculated gamble. The closure of Have A Nice Stay, even before its scheduled shutdown was accelerated by the raid, exemplifies how market pressures and political pressures combine to eliminate spaces for alternative viewpoints.

For writers and publishers, the environment creates impossible choices. Works that critically examine Hong Kong’s political situation, explore the 2019 protest movement, discuss Taiwanese independence, or analyze Chinese Communist Party governance all exist in a zone of legal uncertainty. Some creators have relocated abroad, joining a growing Hong Kong diaspora in Britain, Taiwan, Canada, and elsewhere. Those who remain must either accept severe constraints on their expression or risk the consequences of crossing lines that remain deliberately undefined.

The public library system has already been affected. In 2022, Hong Kong’s government refused to tell a legislator which books had been removed from public libraries under the national security law, establishing a precedent of secrecy around censorship decisions. Readers seeking access to certain perspectives must now rely on private collections, digital tools that circumvent controls, or the diminishing number of physical bookstores willing to stock challenging material.

The Hong Kong Book Fair, which opened on July 16 without the participation of either raided store, has itself become a barometer of the changing environment. Major publishers self-censor their offerings, and controversial topics migrate to informal or underground channels. What was once one of Asia’s most vibrant literary marketplaces increasingly resembles its mainland counterparts, where politically sensitive content circulates through samizdat-style networks rather than open commerce.

The Bottom Line

• Five people were arrested on July 15, 2026, in police raids on two independent Hong Kong bookstores, Have A Nice Stay and Greenfield Book Store, on suspicion of selling “seditious” publications under the 2024 national security law.
• The operation marked the third such raid targeting independent bookstores in four months, following arrests at Book Punch in March and Hunter Bookstore in June.
• Have A Nice Stay had announced its closure just one day before the raid, citing financial difficulties and an “elusive red line” over permissible content.
• Security chief Chris Tang defended the arrests and refused to provide a list of banned books, comparing booksellers’ responsibilities to food safety vendors and stating that “the law is very clear” while keeping enforcement standards deliberately undefined.
• Amnesty International condemned the raids as demonstrating how Hong Kong’s national security framework is being “weaponized to silence dissenting voices and eradicate spaces for free thought and debate.”
• Taiwan President Lai Ching-te expressed support for independent bookstores as “vital in guarding free thought,” while revealing that Taiwanese publishers were already self-censoring for Hong Kong’s book fair.
• The five arrested booksellers were released on bail after two days, but face potential prison sentences of up to seven years if convicted of seditious intent.
• The crackdown continues a pattern of pressure on Hong Kong booksellers that includes the infamous 2015 Causeway Bay Books disappearances, with longtime bookseller Lam Wing-kee dying in Taiwan exile just weeks before the latest raids.