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Hong Kong police on Wednesday arrested two people on suspicion of selling seditious publications and receiving funds from foreign political organizations, acting under a recent national security law.

The government’s statement early Thursday did not identify those arrested. But local media outlets, including the Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao, quoted unidentified sources saying one was Hunter Bookstore’s owner Leticia Wong.

Wong, a pro-democracy former district councilor, has remained outspoken after many leading activists were jailed under a crackdown following massive anti-government protests in 2019. If confirmed, her arrest would be widely seen as the latest step to stifle dissent in the Asian financial hub.

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Wednesday’s arrests occurred a week before the 29th anniversary of the former British colony’s return to Chinese rule. Critics say Beijing’s promise to allow the city to maintain its Western-style civil liberties after the 1997 handover is increasingly threadbare.

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The two arrested are in charge of a shop in Sham Shui Po district, where Wong’s bookstore is located. They were detained on suspicion of sedition under the 2024 national security law and of dealing with assets known or believed to represent proceeds of indictable offense under a separate law.

Last year, a pro-Beijing newspaper’s report accused an independent book fair held at Wong’s bookstore of having connotations of “soft resistance.” It highlighted the bookstore’s plan to sell a biography of jailed pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai.

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Meanwhile, reports say that Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee, seized by Chinese authorities in 2015, dies in Taiwan at 70.

Lam Wing-kee, a former Hong Kong bookseller who became a symbol of resistance to Beijing’s crackdown on speech freedom after he was seized by Chinese authorities in late 2015, has died in Taiwan, the island’s official Central News Agency reported, citing an unnamed source.

The news agency didn’t give a cause of death but said the 70-year-old Lam had a cancer relapse last year and was admitted to MacKay Memorial Hospital in Taipei on Tuesday. He fell into a coma on Wednesday and died Thursday evening, according to the report.

Lam, who was the manager of Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong, moved to Taipei in 2019 over fears of legal troubles and reopened the bookstore under the same name in the Taiwanese capital in 2020.

“The passing of Mr Lam Wing-kee is deeply saddening, but the courage he left behind would not fade,” Lai wrote. “Taiwan will remember that a Hong Kong bookstore worker once told us in the most ordinary yet most steadfast way how precious freedom is and reminded us that democracy requires the efforts of generation after generation to defend it,” said Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te in a social media post.

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