Hong Kong book giant in censorship row after returning titles to ‘pro-democracy’ publisher
Conglomerate accused of 'indirectly murdering the whole publishing industry'
A small independent publishing firm, with a pro-democracy background, has accused the biggest publishing conglomerate in the city of "indirectly murdering the whole publishing industry" by returning hundreds of books after the Occupy protests.
Up Publications had hundreds of books returned by Beijing-friendly Sino United Publishing through its subsidiaries Joint Publishing, Chung Hwa Book and Commercial Press, which operate 51 stores across the city.
"Twenty books - even new publications - which amount to hundreds of copies have been returned by Sino United over the past few months," Up Publications' editor-in-chief, Carmen Kwong Wing-suen, told the Post.
"Our distributer told us that some bookstore staff said we should not have stood at the front line of Occupy Central."
Kwong questioned the reason for the "unprecedented" return of the books by Sino United. She said many of the returned books were about pets and food and were far from being political.
"[The move by Sino United] is no different from indirectly murdering the whole publishing industry … by making the books they dislike simply disappear from the market," she said.