📕 Book Censorship under the NSL

Hong Kong was long one of the freest publishing centres in the Chinese-speaking world — home to a combative free press and to bookshops that openly stocked titles banned across the border. Since the imposition of the National Security Law in June 2020 and the home-grown Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (the "Article 23 law") in 2024, that space has been dismantled. Media freedom fell first: Apple Daily was forced shut in June 2021 and its founder Jimmy Lai jailed for 20 years, Stand News was closed in December 2021, and Citizen News folded in January 2022. The censorship then spread from newsrooms to books, publishers and booksellers.

This page tracks that wider criminalisation of the printed word — from the landmark Sheep Village case, which first turned a children's picture book into a "seditious publication," to the state's quiet purge of the public libraries and the 2026 raids that began arresting the booksellers themselves.

The Landmark Case: Sheep Village

The template for criminalising a book was set by the Sheep Village trilogy (羊村繪本) — three allegorical children's picture books, published by a speech-therapists' union, in which sheep stand for Hongkongers and wolves for the mainland authorities. In September 2022 five union members were jailed for 19 months for "conspiracy to publish seditious publications," and since 2023 people have been prosecuted merely for importing or possessing the books. It was the first time a Hong Kong court declared a book itself seditious under the post-2020 order.

→ Full case, the three books, and the archived editions: 🐑 Sheep Village

The Crackdown Widens: From Authors to Readers to Booksellers

What began with the authors has widened to readers and importers and, in 2026, to the independent bookshops that stock politically sensitive titles — now pursued under the 2024 Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (the Article 23 law), whose "seditious publication" offences carry up to seven years' imprisonment. Hong Kong publishes no list of banned books: Security Secretary Chris Tang has called such a list "pointless," leaving shops to guess where the "red line" falls and pulling titles pre-emptively.

Purging the public libraries

Even before the booksellers were targeted, the state was quietly clearing its own shelves. Within weeks of the National Security Law taking effect in July 2020, Hong Kong Public Libraries pulled books by pro-democracy and localist figures — among them Joshua Wong, Tanya Chan and Nathan Law — "for review" (SCMP). After the Audit Commission urged the Leisure and Cultural Services Department in April 2023 to do more to keep collections compliant, the purge accelerated: local outlets counted at least 195 "political" titles removed over two years (and 255-plus Chinese e-books over three) — from RTHK's Tiananmen documentaries and Liberal Studies textbooks to essays by ex-lawmaker Roy Kwong and travelogues by journalist Allan Au. Chief Executive John Lee said the city had a "duty to identify books with 'bad ideologies'," and the department ruled that flagged books must pass a government review before returning to shelves. As with the banned booksellers, the LCSD has never published the list of what it pulled — while inviting the public to report "objectionable content" (some 140 such reports by 2025) (HKFP: purging · HKFP: John Lee · HKFP: 140 reports).

Raiding the bookshops

2023-03 National-security police and customs arrest two men (aged 38 and 50) for merely importing or possessing the Sheep Village books; Kurt Leung is charged over bringing 18 copies into Hong Kong. Amnesty International calls prosecuting people for possessing a children's book "a new low for human rights" (Amnesty).
2026-03 Police raid the independent bookshop Book Punch, arresting its owner and staff over allegedly seditious stock — reportedly including a biography of ⚖️ Jimmy Lai|黎智英, jailed for 20 years in his national-security case.
2026-06 A second wave: Hunter Bookstore is raided and staff arrested, then bailed pending investigation.
2026-07-15 Amid the annual Hong Kong Book Fair, national-security police raid Have A Nice Stay (a Mong Kok shop founded in 2022 by former journalists) and Greenfield Book Store, arresting five people — two men (aged 37 and 57) and three women (aged 30–59), among them Have A Nice Stay co-founders Sum Wan-wah and Mandy Lau — under Article 24 of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance for acts and publications with "seditious intention." The operation followed a Customs & Excise referral over an overseas book shipment. Among the seized titles was Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping's China by NPR correspondent Emily Feng — a journalist Chinese state media had branded a "traitor to the nation" and denied entry to the mainland in 2022. It was the third round of bookshop arrests in four months (NPR CPJ CDT).
2026-07-16 After the raids, Security Secretary Chris Tang warns booksellers to guard against national-security risks but reiterates the government will not publish a banned-books list. Amnesty International's Sarah Brooks says the sedition offences show the security framework is being "weaponized to silence dissenting voices and eradicate spaces for free thought" (NPR).
2026-07 In a textbook Streisand effect, the traditional-Chinese edition of Feng's book — published in Taiwan that April — sells out within days of the arrests. Within weeks, three independent bookshops announce closures: Greenfield Book Store (after some 50 years in business), Have A Nice Stay (shutting Aug 30, citing financial pressure and an "elusive red line" over which books invite prosecution), and Elmbook — the latter two also barred from the Hong Kong Book Fair (Taipei Times · HKFP).
2026-08 The chilling effect spreads past the shops themselves: Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council reports Hong Kong is now screening publications imported from Taiwan, and logistics firms refuse to ship books to Hong Kong bookstores under police investigation. As of Jul 1, cumulative national-security arrests stand at 409 (212 charged; 183 convicted or awaiting sentence) — 14 of them under the home-grown Article 23 law, 12 already convicted (HKFP).

Children

🐑 Sheep Village|羊村繪本

Backlinks

The Landmark Case: Sheep Village

The Crackdown Widens: From Authors to Readers to Booksellers

Purging the public libraries

Raiding the bookshops