{"id":26602,"date":"2023-03-17T05:42:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T21:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/?p=26602"},"modified":"2024-09-28T05:45:26","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T21:45:26","slug":"arrests-for-possession-of-seditious-childrens-books-a-new-low-for-human-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/arrests-for-possession-of-seditious-childrens-books-a-new-low-for-human-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrests for possession of \u2018seditious\u2019 children\u2019s books a new low for human rights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Responding to the arrest of two men in Hong Kong for possession of children\u2019s books \u2013 classified as \u201cseditious materials\u201d \u2013 that depicted mainland Chinese authorities as leaders of the wolves, Amnesty International\u2019s Deputy Regional Director Hana Young said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople\u2019s freedoms have been battered in Hong Kong since the introduction of the National Security Law in 2020, but even in that context this feels like another new low for human rights in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNational security police have arrested two people for possessing \u2018seditious\u2019 children\u2019s books about sheep and wolves \u2013 a so-called \u2018crime\u2019 that is punishable by up to two years in prison. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is the latest example of the Hong Kong authorities using the colonial-era sedition law as a pretext for cracking down on critical voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese ludicrous sedition charges must be dropped. No one should be imprisoned only because they own children\u2019s books.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Background<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Two men were arrested by Hong Kong\u2019s national security police for \u201csedition\u201d on Monday over the possession of the illustrated children\u2019s books. They have since been released bail but may face up to two years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five people, all former members of the General Union of Hong Kong Speech Therapists, were convicted of sedition in September 2022<\/a> for publishing a series of children\u2019s books about Hong Kong\u2019s 2019 pro-democracy mass protests and other issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the books The Guardians of Sheep Village<\/em>, The 12 Heroes of Sheep Village<\/em> and The Garbage Collectors of Sheep Village<\/em>, Hong Kong residents were depicted as sheep and mainland Chinese authorities as the leader of the wolves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

National security police said the books \u2013 which were aimed at children between four and seven years old \u2013 had a \u201cseditious intent\u201d and \u201cincited violence\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2020, the Hong Kong government has been using colonial-era sedition charges \u2013 alongside the repressive National Security Law which was enacted in June of that year \u2013 to stamp out dissent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Responding to the arrest of two men in Hong Kong for possession of children\u2019s books \u2013 classified as \u201cseditious materials\u201d \u2013 that depicted mainland Chinese authorities as leaders of the wolves, Amnesty International\u2019s Deputy Regional Director Hana Young said: \u201cPeople\u2019s freedoms have been battered in Hong Kong since the introduction of the National Security Law […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":26603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image-id":0,"_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image-id":0,"_hero_title":"","_hero_content":"","_hero_cta_text":"","_hero_cta_link":"","_hero_alignment":"","_hero_background":"","_hero_size":"","_hero_show":"","_hero_type":"","_hero_embed":"","_hero_video_id":0,"_hero_hide_image_caption":true,"_hero_hide_image_copyright":false,"_nav_style":"","_disable_share_icons":false,"_disable_sidebar":false,"_display_author_info":false,"_hide_featured_image":false,"_hide_featured_image_caption":true,"_maximize_post_content":false,"_reduce_content_width":false,"_sidebar_id":0,"_stretch_thumbnail":false,"byline_context":"","byline_entity":"","byline_is_author":false,"disable_related_content":false,"download_id":0,"download_text":"","show_published_date":true,"show_updated_date":true,"term_slider":"","amnesty_index_number":"","recipients":"","recipients_refresh":"","recipients_refreshed":"","amnesty_umbraco_data":"","document_ref":"","amnesty_updated":"","footnotes":""},"category":[1662],"location":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-26602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hongkong-news"],"datePosted":"March 17, 2023","mlpRelationships":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category?post=26602"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=26602"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amnestyhk.org\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=26602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}