Two men have been arrested in Hong Kong for possessing copies of a children’s book that officials deemed “seditious.”
Police and customs officers arrested the men, aged 38 and 50, after raiding their homes and seizing several copies of the book.
The books, part of a series titled “Yangcun,” tell the story of a group of sheep who fight off wolves that try to take over their village and eat them.
Authorities have interpreted the characters as representing Hong Kong and the Chinese government, and used a colonial-era sedition law to arrest the men, Quartz. reported.
The men have been released on bail but have to report to police next month, the BBC reported. reported.
The Yangcun books rocked Hong Kong last year, when five speech therapists who published the books were jailed for 19 months after a Beijing-backed judge found they were “conspiring to publish, distribute and exhibit three books with seditious intent.” , TheGuardian. reported.
However, the latest arrests appear to be the first case in which citizens have been arrested simply for possessing books deemed seditious by authorities, the outlet noted.
Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of China, with a “one country, two systems” principle that is supposed to allow its citizens some freedoms that are not possible in mainland China.
However, residents have seen these rights roll back in recent years after Beijing introduced its 2020 national security law, aimed at cracking down on the widespread pro-democracy protests that have rocked Hong Kong since 2019.
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