Authorities in Hong Kong have sentenced a man to four months in prison for importing children’s books deemed to be subversive.
Following his arrest in March, Kurt Leung, 38, pled guilty on Friday to bringing 18 ‘seditious publications’ into the country from the UK.
The books tell the story of sheep living in a village that have to defend themselves against a pack of wolves.
The sheep take action by going on strike or escaping the village by boat – considered by authorities to allude to recent political events in the administrative region’s history.
Charges against Leung included working with a former colleague to have the publications brought from the UK to his office in Hong Kong.
Leung has publicly expressed remorse over the incident, writing in a letter to the court he had realised the books had the potential to ‘affect the general public.’
The series was originally conceived by five members of the General Union of Hong Kong Speech therapists, each of whom was sentenced to 19 months imprisonment last September.
Publication has since been taken over by a group of overseas educators in the UK, who have published three more titles in both print and digital format.
The offence of sedition, dating back to the region’s time as a colony of the British Empire, has in recent years been increasingly weaponised against dissent in Hong Kong.
Beijing has lately tightened its control over the city, most recently imposing national security laws that human rights advocates say have been used to target critical voices.
Particular targets of both the sedition and national security laws have been activists and pre-democracy campaigners.
Chinese and Hong Kong authorities maintain these measures are essential to ensure stability in the city following months of anti-government protests in 2019.
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