Self-censorship expected as HK book fair held under national security law
For the first time, veteran Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Pang will not display any political books at his booth as the global financial hub holds its first book fair since the event began in 1990 under a new national security law.
Cancelled last year due to the corona virus, the book fair resumes this week amid warnings from authorities against "subversive" or "separatist" books, two vaguely defined crimes in the security law introduced in June 2020.
In 2019, a unit of Pang's Sub-Culture Ltd displayed Chan Yun-chi's 6430, a book of interviews with survivors of the bloody 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on democracy activists in Beijing. This year, he would have liked to display Bruce Lam's award-winning Post-80s Movement, which documents Hong Kong's youngest protesters, and A Sea of People, by former legislator Claudia Mo, who was arrested under the new law and denied bail.
But Pang, who has participated in every book fair since it began, said he wanted to "avoid trouble."
"We had no such worries before," he told Reuters. "It is the first time in 32 years that we undergo such self-censorship." "It's not just the publishing industry that has problems. It's the freedom of society as a whole."
The government's Trade Development Council (HKTDC), the organizer of the fair which draws about 1 million visitors each year, said books would not go through a vetting or censorship process, but exhibitors had to be "self-disciplined."
"I don't think there will be no books about politics, but books that violate Hong Kong law or the national security law should not be here," HKTDC deputy Executive Director Benjamin Chau told reporters.
