National security police arrested five people over "seditious" books reportedly including a Taiwan-published study of identity under Xi Jinping — one day after one of the targeted shops announced it would close, citing Hong Kong's "elusive red lines."
Hong Kong national security police raided two independent bookstores on July 15, arresting five people on suspicion of sedition and hauling away boxes of books — the third such operation against the city's booksellers this year and one that drew a rare public rebuke from Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te.
Footage of the raid spread rapidly across Chinese-language social media. It showed a female employee of Have A Nice Stay (留下書舍), a Prince Edward bookshop founded by former journalists, being led away in handcuffs wearing a black T-shirt that read "I am a bookstore clerk. (我是書店店員)" Users in Taiwan and overseas Hong Konger communities, including a number of Taiwanese bookstores, circulated the image in solidarity.
What Happened During the July 15 Raids
Plainclothes officers arrived at Have A Nice Stay, a fourth-floor shop on Sai Yeung Choi Street South, at around 1 p.m., carrying plastic and cardboard boxes upstairs and restricting access to the building, according to Hong Kong outlets Pulse HK News (追光者) and The Collective HK (集誌社). After roughly four hours, officers escorted the store clerk out and loaded at least ten boxes of materials, a suitcase and other items onto a truck. Towels that had hung in the shop's window bearing the characters for "freedom" and "wind and rain" were later removed.
At around the same time, officers searched Greenfield Book Store (田園書屋), a Mong Kok institution founded in 1976 that specializes in literature, history and philosophy titles from Hong Kong and Taiwan. The online outlet The Collective reported that police took away the person responsible for the shop along with four boxes of items. Both stores remained shuttered during normal business hours.
In a statement issued at 10 p.m., the Hong Kong government said the National Security Department acted on a referral from customs officers, who had found "seditious" books in a shipment sent to Hong Kong from overseas. Police arrested two men, aged 37 and 57, and three women aged between 30 and 59, on suspicion of "doing with a seditious intention an act or acts that had a seditious intention" under Section 24 of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance. A first conviction carries up to seven years in prison. Police said the five had displayed and sold publications whose content could incite hatred against the Hong Kong government, judiciary and law enforcement.
A Taiwan-Published Book on Xi's China Reportedly at the Center
Police did not name the titles seized. However, multiple media outlets citing sources, reported that the book flagged by customs was the Traditional Chinese edition of Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping's China (《唯紅花綻放：習近平時代的認同與歸屬》), published in Taiwan by Acropolis (衛城出版). Written by NPR correspondent Emily Feng （馮哲芸）, the book profiles people navigating Beijing's tightening controls on identity — including, in one chapter, Lam Wing-kee (林榮基), the Causeway Bay Books owner whose 2015 detention by mainland authorities became a defining episode in Hong Kong's battles over the freedom to publish. Lam, who later reopened his bookstore in Taipei, died earlier this month.
Taiwan's President Lai: Ideas Should Never Be Imprisoned
President Lai Ching-te responded on social media on July 16, saying Hong Kong's freedoms of publication, reading and expression are under sustained and severe pressure. He expressed concern and respect for booksellers and cultural workers holding their ground under difficult circumstances, and said that thought and the written word should never be imprisoned by political pressure. Every independent bookstore, Lai said, is a vital site for safeguarding ideas.
Third Bookstore Raid This Year Deepens Chill Over Hong Kong Publishing
The July 15 operation extends a pattern that has unfolded across 2026. In March, national security police arrested Book Punch (一拳書館) owner Pong Yat-ming (龐一鳴) and three staff members on the same sedition charge, seizing titles that reportedly included a book The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong's Greatest Dissident, and China's Most Feared Critic. In late June, Hunter Bookstore (獵人書店) founder Leticia Wong Man-huen (黃文萱) and her husband were arrested on suspicion of sedition, with Wong also accused of receiving funds from foreign political organizations.
Days later, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reportedly barred two long-running independent shops, Elmbook (榆林書店) and Luck Win Bookshop (樂文書店), from this year's Hong Kong Book Fair — a critical annual revenue source for small booksellers, according to The Collective. Elmbook announced on July 8 that it will close its physical store when its lease expires next April. The fair, notably, opened in Wan Chai on the same day as the raids.
Human rights groups condemned the arrests. Amnesty International said Hong Kong's security framework is being weaponized to erase spaces for free thought, warning that residents can now "be criminalized simply for what's on your bookshelf," while Human Rights Watch researcher Yalkun Uluyol said the targeting of booksellers exposes what Beijing fears most: free thinking.
"Elusive Red Lines": A Closure Announced One Day Too Late
The timing of the raid on Have A Nice Stay carried a bitter irony. Just one day earlier, on July 14, the shop had announced it would cease operations on August 30. In its farewell post, the store cited financial deficits, the social environment, the building's condition, and the wellbeing of its team — adding that "the elusive red lines are, of course, another factor." Hong Kong's security chief has previously said the government will not specify which books cannot be sold; the store said it had no way to judge which titles might be deemed "problematic."
（Related： Beijing Watch | Hong Kong Police Raid Independent Bookstore, Arresting Owner Over Jimmy Lai Biography ｜ Latest ）
Have A Nice Stay opened in 2022, founded by five former journalists — including ex-Stand News staff and veteran media figure Sum Wan-wah （岑蘊華） — after the successive shutdowns of Apple Daily, Stand News and Citizen News gutted the city's independent press. After holding on for four years, the shop could not outlast the sweep now closing in on Hong Kong's independent bookstores, where selling and reading books has itself become a national security risk.
