The latest pro-democracy weapon that mainland authorities fear? Toilet paper.
Authorities have seized 7,600 rolls of toilet paper and 20,000 tissue packs that bore caricatures of Chief Executive CY Leung, according to the AFP.
The Hong Kong Democratic Party had made the order.
The items were meant to be sold in Hong Kong at the Lunar New Year Fair in Victoria Park, said Lo Kin-hei, a vice chairman of the party, reports the AP.
The perfect gift for the hygienically minded, politically conscious people in your life!
Last year the party debuted the original concept at the fair and made HKD100,000 in revenue by selling all of the 4,000 rolls of CY Leung toilet paper they had gotten printed.
Kelvin Lai, who is the party’s head of creative media, said they had a friend, unrelated to the party, make the order and deal with all communications with the factory in an effort to evade the mainland authorities’ eye.
But the goods were seized at a factory in Shenzhen on Friday, the day they were meant to be shipped to Hong Kong, reports the AP.
“Apparently Beijing has escalated its attack on the Democratic Party after the Occupy movement in all ways,” Lai said to the SCMP.
“They hope to mute our voice with such suppression and eventually allow only pro-government voices in the city. But I am sure these attempts will not succeed as we will only be more vocal on the democracy cause in future.”
Because that’s democracy: they may disapprove of your choice of toilet paper, but they will defend to the death your right to use it.
“Our products are just some kind of joke, which presents no harm to so-called national security,” said party chief Lam Cheuk-ting.
The vice chairman said the party didn’t know where the Shenzhen factory owner is.
“We are worried about what has happened to him,” he said.
The party is trying to find a local printer who can do the job pronto, as they’ve already spent HKD90,000 on securing the booths at the fair and the deposit for the printer.
Photo: AFP
Reader Interactions