The founder of an independent bookstore in Hong Kong and three staff have been arrested for selling a biography of former media boss Jimmy Lai Chee‑ying and other publications deemed seditious by authorities, the South China Morning Post has learned.
Pong Yat-ming, who founded Book Punch in 2020 in Sham Shui Po, was detained along with three female employees.
They face accusations of selling seditious publications and breaching the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, a source said on Tuesday.
National Security Department officers searched the shop, seizing allegedly seditious books including a Jimmy Lai biography by Mark Clifford, a former independent non-executive director of Next Digital, the jailed tycoon’s company and parent of the shuttered Apple Daily newspaper.
Lai is serving a 20-year sentence handed down in February – the longest term so far under Hong Kong’s national security law – after being convicted of three charges related to national security, including conspiring to collude with foreign forces and conspiring to publish seditious materials.
On Tuesday, Book Punch’s shutters were down with a notice saying it was closed for a day due to an emergency.
