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#Censorship #FailedState
"A Pleasure to Burn": #Books disappeared from Hong Kong O
Public Libraries

After removing books written by prominent democracy activists in Hong Kong in July 2020, the Leisure and Cultural Department has once again suspended the lending of 9 books on grounds of “avoiding the violations of #NationalSecurityLaw”.

These books include "#Chinazi" by #YuJie; "Hong Kong Nationalism" publisged by Undergrad, #HKUSU; "Tanya's Sensitive Spots" by former pro-democracy legislator #TanyaCHAN; and "I Declare War on Tyranny" by former Chairman of the Democratic Party #AlbertHO.

Source: Stand News #May8
https://bit.ly/3h9q233

#BookBurnings #RightToRead #RighttoKnowledge
#Censorship #PublicLibrary
#FailedState
HK Government suspected of un-shelving another 16 books involving topics of #CivilDisobedience and #Protests in #PublicLibrary

Source: Apply Daily #May29

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https://t.me/guardiansofhongkong/30164
#FailedState
HK Government suspected of un-shelving another 16 books involving topics of #CivilDisobedience and #Protests in #PublicLibrary

The Leisure and Cultural Services Department (#LCSD) of the Hong Kong Government is suspected of un-shelving 16 books from public libraries.

These include:

- The writings of pro-democracy activist and former law professor Benny Tai;

- Reverend Chu Yiu-ming's “Civil Disobedience and the Occupation of Central: Reflections on the Faith of Christians in Hong Kong” (公民抗命與佔領中環:香港基督徒的信仰省思);

- “To All of Those Who Have Worn Black Before” (給穿過黑衣的人) by Scholarism;

- Former legislator Raymond Wong Yuk-man’s book “I Wouldn’t Have Argued If I Did’t Have To” (予豈好辯哉).

In addition, the two issues of “#Breakazine!” about the Anti-Extradition Law (#AntiELAB) Protest, are also removed.

These 16 books were all published before the #NationalSecurityLaw came into effect, yet they are no longer available on the public library website.

So far, the government has removed at least 34 books in total.

Source: Apply Daily #May29

https://bit.ly/2R20IRR

#NSL #Censorship #BannedBooks #Regime #DissentLiterature
#WhiteTerror
#PublicLibrary Chief in Hong Kong is Subject to Discipline after Displaying #JimmyLai's Books

Source: InMedia #Sep20

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#WhiteTerror
#PublicLibrary Chief in Hong Kong is Subject to Discipline after Displaying #JimmyLai's Books

Under the National Security Law, civil servants and non-civil servants in Hong Kong are required to sign a "declaration" upholding the Basic Law, "devoting" themselves to the HKSAR, being "loyal" to their work and being accountable to the HKSAR government.

As of September 2021, around 180,000 civil servants have signed the declaration, only 129 have not responded or refuse to sign. Among them, 105 are in long-term employment terms, and the rest are in trial-term employment terms. 113 out of them are in civilian grade, and the rest are in discipline service grade.

Patrick Nip Tak-Kuen, Secretary for Civil Service in the Hong Kong SAR Government attended a Legislative Council (#LegCo) meeting on September 20, 2021.

When answering a question about the penalty for civil servants violating the declaration, Nip revealed that the government had already started the discipline procedure towards a public library chief.

The related librarian is the Director of #ShekTongTsui Public Library. He was suspended from his duty, after placing a number of books authored by Jimmy Lai, the founder of #NextMedia and #AppleDaily, in the "Librarian's Choice for Borrowing". Apple Daily was a pro-democracy Chinese-language newspaper in Hong Kong, which had to shut down due to the government's pressure in June 2021.

Source: InMedia #Sep20
https://bit.ly/3zzVRYB

#NipTakKuen #NationalSecurityLaw #CivilServant #BasicLaw #Declaration #Censorship #Books #Librarian
#Censorship
Hong Kong public libraries purge 29 titles about the Tiananmen Massacre from the shelves

Hong Kong's libraries now have 392 fewer copies of books about the June 4, 1989 massacre than they did in 2009, an HKFP review has found.

In June 2009, the Home Affairs Bureau made public a spreadsheet of 149 titles about the 1989 June 4 massacre that were in Hong Kong’s public libraries at the time, with a total of 1,162 copies available for lending or reference. By inputting each title into the current online catalogue for public libraries, HKFP found that 29 of the titles — 26 in Chinese and three in English — were no longer available as of November 9.

Twelve years on, the number of June 4 titles that can be borrowed — including those that must be retrieved from reserves or requested from library staff — has dropped to 34 per cent, or 41 titles.

Readers must make an enquiry with a librarian and wait for over 30 minutes to retrieve a title from on-site reserves, library staff told HKFP. For a HK$3.3 fee, readers may place requests for the titles in advance, but would have to wait about a week for delivery.

Among the June 4 titles now purged from public libraries are ones published by the Hong Kong Alliance, as well as works by a former leader of the group who was handed a suspended jail sentence for his role in last year’s unauthorised vigil, and by former leaders of the 1989 protests now in exile overseas.

The Tiananmen Massacre on June 4, 1989 ended months of student-led demonstrations in China calling for democracy and other reforms. It is estimated that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people died when the People’s Liberation Army was deployed to crack down on protesters in Beijing.

Information on the event has in the past three decades been heavily censored in mainland China, both on and off the internet. Hong Kong’s freedom to commemorate the event, report on it or read books about it is seen as a litmus test of whether the city can safeguard its freedoms after the handover from Britain to China in 1997.//

Read the full article:
http://hongkongfp.com/2021/11/21/hong-kong-public-libraries-purge-29-titles-about-the-tiananmen-massacre-from-their-shelves/

Source: Hong Kong Free Press #Nov21

#TianamenMassacre #PublicLibrary #MemoryWar #June4 #Alliance #Erasure #Books