HONG KONG – Less than one week ahead of the 29th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from British to Chinese rule, local authorities have arrested two people on charges tied to the city’s national security legislation, with a well-known pro-democracy activist and independent bookstore owner linked to the detention. The operation marks the latest enforcement action targeting dissident voices in the Asian global financial center, escalating long-running international scrutiny of Beijing’s commitments to civil liberties in the semi-autonomous region.
Hong Kong police launched the operation Wednesday, with the city’s government releasing an official statement early Thursday confirming the arrests but withholding the identities of the two detainees. Multiple local media outlets, including prominent Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao, have cited unnamed police and government sources identifying one of the arrested as Leticia Wong, owner of Hunter Bookstore and a former pro-democracy district councilor. The Associated Press has not been able to independently confirm this identification, and police have not responded to requests for comment; attempts to reach Wong directly by phone have also been unsuccessful.
The government statement confirms the detained pair operate a retail outlet in Sham Shui Po, the same district where Wong’s Hunter Bookstore is located. They face two core allegations: engaging in seditious activity under the 2024 Hong Kong National Security Law, and handling assets linked to the proceeds of indictable offenses under separate local legislation. Per official investigative findings released by the government, the pair are accused of displaying and selling publications with seditious content that incites public hatred toward the Hong Kong government, the city’s judiciary, and local law enforcement agencies. They also stand accused of accepting financial remittances from foreign political organizations, though authorities have not publicly named the specific publications or external groups involved in the case.
Wong has long been a high-profile dissident voice in Hong Kong, remaining publicly active even after dozens of leading pro-democracy activists were imprisoned in a widespread crackdown that followed the large-scale 2019 anti-government protests. Her bookstore has been a focal point of official scrutiny for more than two years. In 2024, a pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper accused the independent book fair hosted at Hunter Bookstore of promoting so-called “soft resistance” against authorities, specifically calling out the store’s plan to sell a biography of Jimmy Lai, the jailed founder of the pro-democracy outlet Apple Daily.
In a 2024 interview with the Associated Press, Wong detailed the sustained pressure her business has faced from government authorities. She told AP that between July 2022 and June 2024, Hong Kong officials took more than 90 separate enforcement actions against her store, ranging from routine in-person inspections and high-visibility external patrols to formal warning letters citing potential regulatory violations. She also added that an anonymous threatening letter sent to a group that planned to host an event at her bookstore ultimately forced the organization to cancel its booking.
This latest arrest is not the first targeting independent booksellers in Hong Kong in 2025. Just three months ago, Hong Kong police detained the owner and multiple staff members of another independent bookstore on nearly identical allegations of selling seditious publications, including the same biography of Jimmy Lai. All of those detained were subsequently released on bail following their arrest.
Critics of the national security enforcement argue that these repeated arrests of dissident figures and independent booksellers represent the erosion of the civil liberties and autonomy Beijing promised to preserve in Hong Kong for 50 years following the 1997 handover. They call Wednesday’s arrests the latest step in a systematic campaign to suppress all remaining dissent in the city. Hong Kong government officials, however, maintain that the existing national security laws are an essential pillar of the city’s social and political stability, and have repeatedly emphasized that all legally protected rights, including freedom of speech, remain firmly guaranteed under the city’s current legal framework.