Hong Kong Bookseller 'Snatched' by Police While Traveling With Swedish Diplomats

[misskit]

Disappeared Hong Kong bookseller and Swedish national Gui Minhai has been kidnapped for a second time -- this time while in the company of Swedish diplomats, the Swedish foreign ministry said on Monday.

Hong Kong-based Gui "disappeared" under murky circumstances from his holiday home in Pattaya, Thailand onOctober 2015, only to reappear in China "confessing" to a decade-old alleged drunk-driving offense.

One of five Hong Kong booksellers detained by Chinese police for selling "banned books" to customers across the internal border in mainland China, Gui was "released" by the Chinese authorities last October, but his U.K.-based daughter Angela Gui said he was still not free.

Instead, Gui had been placed under various forms of control and surveillance to his birthplace, Ningbo, and had been reunited with his wife Jennifer, who is a German national, the Independent Chinese PEN writers' group said at the time.

He was once more taken away by more than 10 plainclothes police officers while traveling from Ningbo to the Swedish embassy in Beijing by train in the company of two diplomats from the Swedish Consulate in Shanghai, Radio Sweden reported on Monday.

Sweden's foreign ministry confirmed the story to the station.

"This incident will be handled with the utmost seriousness," foreign ministry official Patric Nilsson said.

"We have taken strong measures at the highest political level."

Angela Gui said she was "shocked but not surprised" by her father's second disappearance.

"I'm most worried about his health," she said. "I am very scared that this means his time in China will be drawn out even longer and I am very worried that I might not get to speak to him again for a very long time."

"I am very worried over how he is doing, considering he might not have so much time left," Gui added.


Illegal move


The New York Times reported on Monday that mainland officials told Swedish diplomats that the bookseller was suspected of sharing secret information with them.

Amnesty International China researcher Patrick Poon said he was "surprised and angry" at the incident.

"I am very surprised and angry that he has been taken away once again, and worse, when he was in the company of diplomats," Poon said. "The Chinese government has acted recklessly."

But he said the incident was unlikely to have occurred without orders from the highest level.

"It's likely that the police were acting on orders from the highest echelons of leadership," he said.

Poon called on the government to clarify Gui's detention and current status. "If they don't, then today's incident really is illegal," he said.

The writers' group Pen Hong Kong also called for clarification of Gui's status.

"Pen Hong Kong is extremely concerned about Gui Minhai, the Hong Kong’s based publisher and bookseller reportedly snatched by police while on a train in China under the eyes of Swedish diplomats," the group said via its Twitter account.

"We call for his release and clarity over what has happened."


'Shocking development'


And Sophie Richardson, China director for the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), said Gui's disappearance was "a shocking development."

"This is a shocking development, for Chinese police to do this to a foreign citizen, in the company of his country’s diplomats, and when Chinese authorities have themselves said he is ‘free’" Richardson said via Twitter.

"If diplomats talking to their own citizens in #China is now considered spying, this is a massive problem," she wrote.

And Amnesty International researcher William Nee said the group remains "very concerned" about Gui.

"The government should stop any extralegal measures taken against him, and ensure he receives the medical care that he needs," Nee wrote in a tweet on Monday.

In February 2016, the U.K. accused Beijing of breaching the handover treaty by "involuntarily removing" Gui's colleague British national Lee Bo across the internal immigration border to mainland China.

There is no record of Lee leaving Hong Kong, suggesting that he was spirited across the internal immigration border by Chinese police, while colleagues Lui Por, Lam Wing-kei and Cheung Chi-ping were also detained in late 2015 after they crossed the border into China.

Lui, Cheung and Lam were later released after making televised "confessions" with a set of instructions from China's state security police: to reappear in Hong Kong, refute reports of their disappearance, and claim to be voluntarily helping police with their inquiries.

But Lam Wing-kei, who refused to to stick to that script and has since traveled to the democratic island of Taiwan, has told RFA that Gui is very unlikely to be allowed to leave China now.

Lam said the authorities are likely to use Gui's relatives still living in China as "hostages" to prevent him from speaking out even if he is allowed to leave the country.

Hong Kong Bookseller 'Snatched' by Police While Traveling With Swedish Diplomats

[misskit]

EU, Sweden call for China to release detained publisher

BEIJING--The European Union on Wednesday joined Sweden in calling on China to immediately release a Swedish book publisher who was taken off a train in front of his country's diplomats by Chinese police four days ago.


The Chinese foreign ministry on Wednesday indicated Gui Minhai, the Hong Kong-based book publisher, and the Swedish diplomats who were with him may have been breaking Chinese law.


Gui was first abducted in 2015, one of five Hong Kong booksellers whose disappearances became a symbol of the extent to which China was willing to reinforce its hard line on squelching political dissent and a free press--despite international criticism.


The office of EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said it "fully supports the public statement and efforts of the Swedish government" on Gui's behalf.


"We expect the Chinese authorities to immediately release Mr. Gui from detention, allow him to reunite with his family and to receive consular and medical support in line with his rights," it said in a statement.


On Tuesday, Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallstrom said in a news release that China has given no clear explanation for Gui's detention. Sweden has already summoned China's ambassador in the Scandinavian country over the 53-year-old's case.


"We take a very serious view of the detention on Saturday of Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, with no specific reason being given for the detention, which took place during an ongoing consular support mission," Wallstrom said in her statement.


"We expect the immediate release of our fellow citizen, and that he be given the opportunity to meet Swedish diplomatic and medical staff," she said.


Wallstrom said the Swedish diplomats accompanying Gui had been "providing consular assistance to a Swedish citizen in need of medical care.


"This was perfectly in line with basic international rules giving us the right to provide our citizens with consular support," she said.


Gui had been running a Hong Kong publishing company specializing in gossipy tales about high-level Chinese politics when he disappeared from his Thai holiday home about two years ago. He was believed to have been spirited away by Chinese security agents to mainland China, where he later turned up in police custody. In a videotaped confession that supporters believe was coerced, Gui stated that he'd turned himself in to mainland authorities over a hit-and-run accident.


He was released into house arrest in October in the eastern city of Ningbo, living in what his daughter Angela called a police-managed apartment.


His daughter told Radio Sweden, the English-language service of national broadcaster Sveriges Radio, that her father was on a train with two Swedish diplomats on Saturday when a group of police officers seized him.


She said her father was traveling to Beijing to see a Swedish doctor after he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurological disease that he developed while in custody.


Gui's 2015 abduction reinforced rising fears that Beijing was chipping away at the rule of law in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese city that is promised civil liberties such as freedom of speech until 2047.


The books Gui and his colleagues sold at their Causeway Bay Bookshop were popular with visitors from mainland China, where such titles are banned.


Questioned at a daily briefing about Gui's situation, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she was "not aware of the details."


Calls for Gui's release "don't make sense I think," Hua said, adding that "other countries should respect the competent Chinese authority's law-based handling of the foreigners' cases in China."


Without giving details, Hua said "all people in China must not violate China's laws."


"I would like to reiterate that all foreigners in China including foreign diplomats should not engage in activities that violate relevant international conventions or Chinese laws," she said.


Under Chinese law, those convicted of a crime generally have their civil rights suspended for a period of time, although it wasn't clear whether that applied in Gui's case. The prohibitions, which are often not made public, can also include restrictions on travel.


Chinese authorities also have a history of continuing to persecute political prisoners even after their release from prison and other legal strictures.


Noted human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng recently disappeared back into custody after five years of prison and three more years confined by guards at home. Liu Xia, the wife of the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, has been held a virtual prisoner for years despite never being charged.


Since her husband's death in July while serving a prison sentence, Liu has had virtually no contact with friends or family and the authorities will not say where she is currently being held.

EU, Sweden call for China to release detained publisher?The Asahi Shimbun

[Farang Ky Ay]

So Chinese agents can kidnap people in Thailand and send them to China, no Thai authorities' involvement? Sounds strange, if so what a lost of face it would be...

[Dragonfly]

Chinese doing what Americans have been doing for decades, like NK did before in South Korea