Hong Kong bookstore owner, 3 staff held for selling Jimmy Lai biography

The founder of an independent bookstore in Hong Kong and three staff have been arrested for selling a biography of former media boss Jimmy Lai Chee‑ying and other publications deemed seditious by authorities, the South China Morning Post has learned.Pong Yat-ming, who founded Book Punch in 2020 in Sham Shui Po, was detained along with three female employees.They face accusations of selling seditious publications and breaching the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, a source said on Tuesday.National Security Department officers searched the shop, seizing allegedly seditious books including a Jimmy Lai biography by Mark Clifford, a former independent non-executive director of Next Digital, the jailed tycoon’s company and parent of the shuttered Apple Daily newspaper.Lai is serving a 20-year sentence handed down in February – the longest term so far under Hong Kong’s national security law – after being convicted of three charges related to national security, including conspiring to collude with foreign forces and conspiring to publish seditious materials.On Tuesday, Book Punch’s shutters were down with a notice saying it was closed for a day due to an emergency.