You know a government has become Orwellian when it punishes publishers of children’s books. That’s where Hong Kong’s Beijing supplicants have taken the territory with the conviction last week of five executives of the local speech-therapists’ union for seditious conspiracy.
Judge Kwok Wai Kin found the five guilty for their role in publishing and disseminating the three books, which tell the story of sheep menaced by wolves. Hong Kong’s lupine leaders claimed the books were intended to incite “hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection” against the government. The five received a 19-month sentence.
