In a quiet Hong Kong cul-de-sac, hundreds gathered over the weekend to say goodbye to an independent bookstore after weekly government inspections spurred by anonymous complaints forced it to put up the shutters.
Mount Zero said it would close at the end of last month after constant complaints to authorities, who had accused it of illegally occupying government land by tiling a pavement in front of the store, with the threat of fines and jail time.
Since Hong Kong imposed a national security law in 2020 the territory’s cultural sector has been hit by censorship fears, and the handful of bookstores that remain say they are operating in an environment of increasing pressure.
Photo: AFP
“Authorities often say Hong Kong will go back to normal ... [but] these things will haunt our lives,” said political scientist Ivan Choy, who attended the gathering.
Hong Kong recently enacted a second national security law, which critics fear will further drive pro-democracy sentiments underground and chill cultural and artistic freedoms.
The territory’s government has rejected allegations the laws curtail freedom of expression.
However, Mount Zero has lived through dramatic political change since its founding six years ago and book lovers mourned that the liberal-minded bookstore had seemingly become a victim of that shift.
Leo, a 20-year-old student who declined to give his last name, said he worried “the categories of books allowed for sale would be restricted,” hurting other independent bookstores.
Mount Zero often hosted cultural events such as book talks in its outdoor area and gained a devoted following. Margaret Ng, a barrister and former pro-democracy politician, said the two-story bookstore had offered like-minded readers a vital place to gather.
“You can see in Mount Zero the aspirations of the young people to express themselves in literature and to form their own community,” she said.
Several independent bookstores in December last year reported spikes in government inspections, some prompted by anonymous complaints including fire safety and labor regulations.
Announcing its closure last year, Mount Zero said it hoped “the mysterious complainant can take a break” after it received weekly visits from different government departments.
“The time saved can be used to sit down and read a book properly,” it said.
Agence France-Presse could not independently verify the nature of the complaints.
Below a mosaic sign that read “Ideas are bulletproof,” sweet green pea soup and barbecue pork were passed around in the bookshop’s final hours.
As night fell, the store’s lights dimmed and readers lamenting its loss said the impact on the local community would not be forgotten.
“What really counts in the case of Mount Zero is not a particular bookshop,” Ng said. “It’s the spirit, and that spirit is unvanquished.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS