Chinese authorities arrested two men who had a children’s book which officials called “seditious”.
Police and customs officials detained the men, aged 38 and 50, on March 13 after searching their homes and finding several copies of a book describing how sheep keep wolves out of the village. The wolves want to take over the village and eat the sheep, prompting the sheep to fight them off.
Authorities interpreted the book as a reference to Hong Kong and Beijing. Officers relied on a colonial-era law to justify sending the men to prison, QZ reported.
Both have been released on bail but are due to appear before police next month, the BBC reports. During the search, the police confiscated several copies of the books.
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Hong Kong Senior Superintendent Steve Lee of the city’s new National Security Police Unit holds a children’s book that purports to explain the city’s pro-democracy movement at a police press conference in Hong Kong on July 22, 2021, after five members of the Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Trade Union were arrested for rioting. for publishing the titles. (Daniel Suen/AFP via Getty Images)
The book, one of three in a series called Yangcun, caused an uproar last year when a government-appointed judge ruled that it was “seditious intent” and sentenced five speech therapists to 19 months in prison for publishing.
The court emphasized that the punishment was imposed for “harm or risk of harm to the minds of children” and the potential to sow “instability”, according to The Independent.
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Children’s books are pictured during a news conference following the arrest of five people on suspicion of conspiracy to publish seditious material at the headquarters of the Hong Kong Police on July 22, 2021 in Hong Kong, China. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)
“What the defendants did to children aged four and over was in effect brainwashing the youngest children to adopt their views and values,” the judge said.
This week’s arrests will be the first for simply possessing a book, which critics say represents a serious erosion of freedoms in the country.
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The contents of children’s books are shown on a television screen during a news conference after five people were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to publish seditious material at the Hong Kong police headquarters on July 22, 2021 in Hong Kong, China. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)
Hong Kong remains a special administrative region of China under a “one country, two systems” agreement with Beijing, but the rights granted to the island’s citizens will be phased out from 2020 with the implementation national security law which was aimed at suppressing mass protests.
The use of an even more outdated law and a vague definition of “seditious” showed the lengths to which Chinese officials will go in their efforts to limit dissent, said Professor Johannes Chan, former chairman of the Department of Public Law at the University of Hong Kong. .
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“If the cartoon in [a newspaper] Considered seditious, any reader who kept a copy of the paper could be guilty of a possession offence, Chan, who is a visiting professor at University College London, told The Guardian. – This can hardly be compatible with the guarantee of freedom of speech in the Basic Law or the Bill of Rights.
