Four Hong Kong booksellers have been arrested for selling “seditious titles.”

Four booksellers in Hong Kong have been arrested for allegedly selling “seditious titles.” The bookstore in question, Book Punch, is owned by Pong Yat Ming. The titles in question center on Jimmy Lai, the jailed media tycoon and founder of a pro-democracy newspaper. Titles like Mark Clifford’s The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic have been removed from the shelves. Jimmy Lai received a 20-year prison term in February for sedition. In 2016, Chinese secret agents allegedly kidnapped five men connected with Causeway Bay Books. Over the past ten years, interference from mainland China has increased. Mark Clifford said it was a sad commentary that selling a book on a man jailed for promoting free expression would be subject to sedition.

• Four booksellers in Hong Kong have been arrested on suspicion of selling “seditious titles.”
• The offending titles center Jimmy Lai, the jailed media tycoon and founder of a recently shuttered pro-democracy newspaper.
• Jimmy Lai was sentenced ​to a 20-year prison term in February for sedition, in Hong Kong’s biggest national security case to date.

Source: Literary Hub  | 
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