Hong Kong Police Raid Two Independent Bookstores, Arrest Five People

On July 15, 2026, Hong Kong's National Security Department raided two independent bookstores — Have A Nice Stay and Greenfield Book Store — in the Mong Kok district, arresting five people. The arrested individuals comprised two men aged 37 and 57, and three women aged between 30 and 59.

The raids were triggered after Hong Kong's Customs and Excise Department intercepted a batch of books deemed to have seditious intent in an overseas shipment to Hong Kong and referred the case to the National Security Department. Police alleged that the seized publications contained content inciting hatred against Hong Kong's government, judiciary, and law enforcement agencies.

The five arrestees are suspected of violating Hong Kong's national security legislation by 'acting with seditious intent', an offense punishable by up to seven years in prison.

The July 2026 raids were the third round of police action against independent bookstores in Hong Kong in 2026, following arrests at Book Punch in March and Hunter bookstore in June.

Hong Kong enacted its own national security law in 2024, in addition to legislation imposed by Beijing in 2020 following the 2019 pro-democracy protests. The 2020 legislation followed Beijing's promise that Hong Kong would maintain Western-style civil liberties for 50 years after its return to China in 1997.

Center-left outlets reported that AFP journalists witnessed officers from the National Security Department lead a woman in handcuffs from Have A Nice Stay bookshop into a police van and remove several boxes of materials during the operation.

Have A Nice Stay bookshop announced on July 14, 2026 — one day before the raids — that it would close on August 30, citing financial losses and uncertainty about what content might be considered legally problematic, described as an 'elusive red line'. The bookshop was founded in 2022 by a group of former journalists and stocks literature on democracy, authoritarianism, and media literacy, according to center-left outlets.

The BBC reported that Greenfield Book Store stocks books from Hong Kong and Taiwan covering literature, history, philosophy, art, sociology, and self-improvement. Neither Have A Nice Stay nor Greenfield Book Store was participating in the 2026 Hong Kong Book Fair, which opened on the same day as the raids.

Center-left outlets reported that four workers at Book Punch bookstore were arrested in March 2026 on suspicion of selling seditious publications, including the biography of Jimmy Lai. Two workers at Hunter bookstore were arrested in June 2026 on the same suspicion, and persons arrested in the earlier 2026 rounds were later released on bail.

Both center-left and center-right outlets described a decline in Hong Kong's independent bookstore sector since Beijing imposed sweeping national security legislation on the city in 2020, after which many bookstores that offered a broader range of political and social titles closed.

The Guardian reported that Hong Kong's secretary for security Chris Tang said the government would not establish a banned books list, calling such a list pointless to implement, while stating that national security laws are crucial for the city's stability.

The BBC quoted Amnesty International stating that the raids reflect a 'chilling reality' in which people can be criminalized for books on their shelf, and that regulatory ambiguity about 'red lines' has caused self-censorship and fear among booksellers and writers.

The Straits Times reported that Human Rights Watch researcher Yalkun Uluyol called on democratic governments to press Hong Kong authorities to release the arrested booksellers. The same outlet reported that Taiwan President Lai Ching-te posted on Facebook on July 16, 2026, stating that every independent bookstore is 'an important space for safeguarding thought'.

The Guardian reported that Lam Wing-kee, owner of Causeway Bay Books — which became internationally known after four affiliated staff disappeared in late 2015 and Lam revealed in 2016 that he had been held by Chinese authorities — died earlier in July 2026.