In the past two weeks, Hong Kong publisher Raymond Yeung has hastily made changes to a draft paper copy of a book entitled To Freedom (致自由), replacing the word “revolution” with “protests,” tweaking a banned slogan and cutting passages that advocate independence for the Chinese territory.
The changes were hard to make, he said, but impossible to avoid since China passed a National Security Law on June 30, making the broadly defined crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces punishable by up to life in prison.
“This is really painful,” Yeung said, as he flipped through pages of the collection of essays by 50 protesters, lawyers, social workers and other participants in the pro-democracy demonstrations that shook Hong Kong last year.
Photo: Reuters
“This is history. This is the truth,” he said, holding up the book with blue sticky flags on many pages to mark changes made because of the new law.
Just as demand for political books was surging in Hong Kong after a year of protests, the territory’s once unbridled and prolific independent publishers are now censoring themselves in the face of the new law.
Hong Kong authorities say freedom of speech remains intact, but in the past two weeks public libraries have taken some books off the shelves, shops have removed protest-related decorations and the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong! Revolution of our times” has been declared illegal.
Photo: Reuters
To Freedom is the first political book Yeung has taken on as a part-time publisher.
After Beijing introduced the security law, the book’s original printer bailed, and two other printers declined, he said.
Another printer agreed to take it anonymously, but wants to get a better sense of how the law is implemented first.
The Hong Kong Trade Development Council, which organizes the annual Hong Kong Book Fair, told exhibitors not to display what it called “unlawful books” at this week’s planned fair.
The council postponed the fair at the last minute on Monday due to a recent spike in COVID-19 cases. It did not specify a new date for the event.
Three non-governmental pro-Beijing groups had teamed up to urge people to report stalls at the fair selling material promoting Hong Kong independence, a subject that is anathema to the Chinese government.
“Every citizen has a duty to report crime,” said Innes Tang (鄧德成), chairman of PolitiHK Social Strategic, one group behind the campaign. “We are not the police. We are not the ones to say where the red line is.”
Jimmy Pang (彭志銘), a veteran local publisher who has participated in every fair since it began in 1990, called this year “the most terrifying year” because of the security law and the economic downturn that was already hurting publishers.
He said the law has prompted publishing houses and writers to halt projects while printers, distributors and bookstores have turned down sensitive books.
For example, Breakazine, a local Christian publication, said it suspended the distribution of its mid-July issue called “Dangerous Reading” while seeking legal advice for navigating the security law.
“Everyone is avoiding risks by suffering in silence,” said Pang, a spokesman for 50 exhibitors at the fair.
Last year, a unit of Pang’s Sub-Culture Ltd published Chan Yun-chi’s (陳潤芝) 6430 (六四記憶) — a book of interviews with surviving pro-democracy protesters in the run-up to the 30th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, a subject heavily censored on the mainland.
“In the future, there will be no sensitive books related to politics,” he said.
Bao Pu (鮑樸), the son of Bao Tong (鮑彤), the most senior Chinese Communist Party official jailed for sympathizing with Tiananmen protesters, founded New Century Press in 2005 in Hong Kong to publish books based on memoirs and government documents and other sources that often differ from the official versions of events in China and could not be published on the mainland.
His customers were mostly mainland visitors, a lucrative niche in Hong Kong until China began to tighten border controls a decade ago, making it harder to bring back books to the mainland.
Given the drop off in demand, Bao Pu said he no longer plans to publish such books in Hong Kong. However, he urged other publishers to avoid self-censorship.
“If everybody does that, then the law would have much more impact on freedom of speech,” he said.
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
STAGNATION: Once a bastion of leftist politics, the Aymara stronghold of El Alto is showing signs of shifting right ahead of the presidential election A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an indigenous bastion keenly fought over in tomorrow’s presidential election. The “Titanic,” as the tallest building in the city is known, serves as the latest in a collection of uber-flamboyant neo-Andean “cholets” — a mix of chalet and “chola” or Indigenous woman — built by Bolivia’s Aymara bourgeoisie over the past two decades. Victor Choque Flores, a self-made 46-year-old businessman, forked out millions of US dollars for his “ship in a sea of bricks,” as he calls his futuristic 12-story
RSS