Book selling is not a crime

Posted: 20th February 2025

#BooksellingIsNotACrime

It’s an unusual newsletter from us today. This last week has been a whirlwind of activity at Pluto HQ as we have been campaigning to support a Palestinian-run bookshop in need.

At 3pm on 9 February 2025, booksellers (& friends of Pluto) Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna were accosted by undercover Israeli police. They were arrested at the Educational Bookshop in Jerusalem, handcuffed and taken to prison. Hundreds of books were confiscated. Two days later, Mahmoud and his nephew Ahmad were released. They remain on house arrest.

You can read more about the arrest in the Guardian.

The nature of these arrests is terrifying. Every day, booksellers, librarians, publishers and writers are censored in a hundred different ways in almost every country around the world. Some are jailed, some see their work banned and others are driven out of business by subtler means. We must rally to protect the freedom to read, which means the freedom to run a bookshop. Booksellers are not criminals.
 
That is why we have teamed up with Saqi Books to call for an international #BooksellingIsNotACrime day, this Saturday 22nd February 2025. Bookshops across the world have pledged their support, and so can you!

How you can help…

• Follow the hashtag #BooksellingIsNotACrime to see which bookshops are participating
• Donate to and share the Educational Bookshop fundraiser
• Pop into your local bookshop on #BooksellingIsNotACrime day – buy a book, take a pic and post the hashtag yourself
• Tag your favourite bookstores online and stand in solidarity with booksellers around the world

Donate to the fundraiser

On the blog…

‘Booksellers are agents of knowledge, they are purveyors of the dream that the future can be different, offering us hope in the darkest of times.’

Read more from Pluto’s Head of Sales Sophie O’Reirdan.
 Read the blog