Hong Kong bookshop owners arrested in yet another free speech crackdown

Max Thompson, Campaigns Officer

29 June 2026

While the Free Speech Union primarily focuses on threats to free speech in the United Kingdom – particularly under this deeply authoritarian government – a story from last week serves as a stark reminder that the assault on free expression is not confined to our shores.

Two owners of Hunter Bookstore in Hong Kong – including former pro-democracy district councillor Leticia Wong – have been arrested and accused of "displaying seditious items", including material said to incite hatred against the Hong Kong SAR government, its judiciary, and law enforcement agencies. The pair have also been accused of receiving remittances from "foreign political organisations".

The charge of displaying seditious items carries a maximum sentence of fourteen years in prison. It falls under the Hong Kong Safeguarding National Security Ordinance – commonly known as Article 23 – which goes even further than the Beijing-imposed National Security Law introduced in 2020. Since that law came into force, Hong Kong has witnessed a sustained and sinister clampdown on pro-democracy advocates, supporters of a free press, and defenders of freedom of speech – most notably the imprisoned media owner Jimmy Lai, who is serving a life sentence as a direct consequence of its provisions.

Hunter Bookstore opened in 2022 – after the National Security Law had already come into effect – in the Sham Shui Po district. It quickly gained a reputation for stocking literature that the authorities regard as sensitive: titles including a biography of Jimmy Lai, George Orwell's Animal Farm, and the manga series Attack on Titan, all of which are banned in mainland China.

Wong has told the Taiwanese media outlet Commonwealth Magazine that the bookstore has been subjected to relentless administrative harassment. This has included a tax audit and a demand that she produce her company's financial statements alongside monthly reports from her personal bank accounts stretching back several years. Other bookshops in Hong Kong have reported similar treatment.

The arrests have drawn sharp condemnation from free speech advocates. Chloe Cheung, advocacy manager at the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, said: "Hounding booksellers and threatening them with jail time is not the sign of a confident regime, but one that is so scared of criticism that it wants to control how people think from the moment they are born."

She added: "Leticia Wong would have known the likely consequences of hosting debates while selling so-called 'sensitive' books and candles to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4. But she is a Hong Konger – prepared to suffer for her ideals, just like Jimmy Lai, Chow Hang-tung, and the almost 2,000 other political prisoners who have been detained in Hong Kong since 2019."

The case is a reminder that while the Free Speech Union fights its battles at home, the broader struggle for free expression is playing out in far graver circumstances elsewhere. In Hong Kong, booksellers face prison. Business owners are censored by the state. And Jimmy Lai – a man whose crime was to run a newspaper – remains behind bars, with no end in sight.

Read more in The Telegraph.