More than 20 Hong Kong police officers have been deployed to a neighbourhood where a week-long independent book fair was underway. Some attendees had their IDs and bags checked by the police, a book store staffer told HKFP’s journalist at the scene.
Uniformed and plainclothes police officers were on patrol around Tai Ping Shan Street in Sheung Wan on Friday, the first day of a book fair featuring 20 local independent publishers that aimed to promote reading in the city.
The event, which opened on Friday and ends next Thursday, is in collaboration with ten shops in the neighbourhood. Books are being showcased at different venues, including restaurants and coffee shops.
Books were also on display at former bookstore Mount Zero, which bid farewell to hundreds of book lovers in late March. The shop had announced its decision to close last December, citing a string of inspections by authorities following alleged anonymous complaints.
On Friday afternoon, a HKFP reporter at the scene saw uniformed police stop a car leaving the former Mount Zero bookstore. In the vehicle was the bookstore’s former owner and pro-democracy figure and barrister Margaret Ng. The police let the vehicle go after around five minutes.
A woman was also stopped by the police around the bookstore. The police asked for her identification document, but the woman said she lived nearby and did not bring it with her. She was released afterwards.
Travel writer Pazu, who arrived at the bookstore at around 3 pm on Friday, told HKFP that he saw police officers intercepting people who bought books from the store as they asked to check their bags and IDs.
He was also stopped and searched at a nearby public toilet.
Police officers were stationed at different corners in the neighbourhood, and a police van was also parked near the bookstore, Pazu said.
A bookstore staffer told an HKFP reporter that there were more police officers on standby in the morning. Almost everyone who left the bookstore was stopped and searched by the police, they said.
HKFP has reached out to the police for comment.
Mount Zero was founded in 2018, before a wave of new independent bookstores opened in the city after it was shaken by the 2019 protests and unrest and then hit by Covid-19. The bookstore had also published books, including a title by Ng.
