Hong Kong’s national security police say five people arrested over the publication of a children’s picture book featuring sheep and wolves were trying to stir up hatred against the city’s government.
Senior Superintendent Steve Li told a press conference on Thursday the books attempted to simplify “political issues not comprehensible by children” and to “beautify illegal behaviour.” The book disparaged “kind-hearted” sheep as well as the wolves, he said.
The comments came after police arrested five people on suspicion of “conspiring to publish seditious publications” under section 10 of the Crimes Ordinance.
Police said the chairperson, deputy chairperson, secretary, and treasurer of the General Union of Hong Kong Speech Therapists were among the five arrested on Thursday morning. Police seized around 550 children’s books, and a large quantity of leaflets, computers and mobile phones.
The contents in question included three children’s books based on the anti-extradition bill protests, the 12 Hong Kong pro-democracy activists arrested as they tried to flee the territory by speedboat to Taiwan, and a brief strike by hospital workers calling for the border with mainland China to be completely sealed at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
Seditious children’s book
Li said the first book, Guardians of the Sheep Village, compared sheep to Hong Kong people and wolves to mainland Chinese people. Displaying the books for the press, he said the main point was that the wolves in sheep’s clothing made the lives of the sheep worse.
