HONG KONG, Feb. 7 (UPI) — Authorities in China seized 7,600 rolls of toilet paper and 20,000 tissues packets featuring an image of Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying from a factory on Friday.
Hong Kong’s Democratic Party was planning to sell the products at the Lunar New Year fair, after already having sold 4,000 rolls last year. The toilet paper and tissues feature the leader’s face, some with the word “lying” on his face and others showing him with fangs.
The controversy comes after Hong Kong experienced major protests over a plan to allow the public to vote for the city’s chief executive only after a committee screens out candidates not backed by Beijing. Students and Occupy Central protesters had taken over many significant parts of Hong Kong for weeks in what came to be called the “Umbrella Revolution.”
“Apparently Beijing has escalated its attack on the Democratic Party after the Occupy movement in all ways,” Kelvin Lai King-wai, head of the Democratic Party’s creative media division, told South China Morning Post. “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.”
The party had spent HK$70,000 ($9,028) to obtain two booths for the New Year fair and HK$20,000 ($2,579) for a deposit on the tissues and toilet paper.