Topic: Independent Hong Kong Book-Sellers Missing, Believed Detained (Read 1102 times)

'Disappearance' of Fifth Bookstore Owner Sparks Outcry in Hong Kong
2016-01-04

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/disappearance-of-fifth-bookstore-owner-sparks-outcry-in-hong-kong-01042016103209.html


Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying on Monday hit out at the 'disappearance' of a fifth bookseller and publisher linked to a bookstore known for selling political gossip about the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

But he stopped short of confirming that the owners and employees of Causeway Bay Books and its parent publishing company had indeed been detained by Chinese police or their agents in Hong Kong, which has maintained its status as a separate jurisdiction since the 1997 handover to China.

"No other law enforcement agencies outside of Hong Kong have such authority," Leung, who has often been accused of kowtowing to Beijing, told reporters.

"In Hong Kong, the only people who can exercise the power of the law are our legal enforcement agencies of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government," he said. "The law protects the rights, including the freedom and safety of everybody in Hong Kong."

"It would be unacceptable if mainland law enforcement agents enforce laws in Hong Kong because this violates the Basic Law," Leung said, in a reference to the territory's mini-constitution.

Leung told reporters that the government is "concerned" about the case, and will be following up on it.

Lee Bo, 65, who manages Causeway Bay Books, was last seen last Wednesday in the Chai Wan warehouse of Mighty Current, the publishing house that owns the shop, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Monday.

Four of his business associates, publisher Gui Minhai, general manager Lui Bo and colleagues Cheung Jiping and Lam Wing-kei have gone missing under similar circumstances since October, although some have called to let their families know they are alive and well, suggesting they are now in detention in China.

Rights lawyer and pan-democratic lawmaker Albert Ho said the booksellers' disappearances are likely linked to a planned book on President Xi Jinping's love life.

"It probably has to do with ... a book containing a story about a girlfriend [of Xi's] ... from some years ago," Ho told a news conference in Hong Kong on Sunday.

"The publishers were warned not to publish this book ... [which] probably hasn't gotten as far as the printing stage yet," he said.

In an interview with RFA, Ho said the case of the missing booksellers is the latest in a long line of assaults on Hong Kong's traditional freedom of expression and publication.

"The mainland is targeting our publishing industry and our journalists in a policy that could be described as white terror," Ho said.

"This has been going on for some time now, and now we can see the long arm of Chinese law enforcement reaching into Hong Kong."

Retaliation and protests

The hacker group Anonymous has vowed to attack Chinese government websites in retaliation for not allowing Hong Kong to maintain the high degree of autonomy it was promised before the handover, according to a video posted to YouTube.

The 'disappearances' have sparked protests in Hong Kong, as well as growing calls for the government to investigate whether the "one country, two systems" principle agreed with the city's outgoing British rulers had been violated.

Lee’s wife told Hong Kong's Cable TV that her husband had called her from neighboring Shenzhen the night he disappeared, speaking Mandarin rather than the couple's native tongue, Cantonese.

"He said he will not be coming back any time soon. He said he was assisting in an investigation," she said.

"I asked him if it was about the previous cases, he said yes. It was about the missing [associates]," she said, in comments translated by the SCMP, which also quoted Hong Kong police sources as saying they had no record of Lee going through immigration on his way out of the city.

Richard Choi, of the Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement in China, said there are fears that the five men may be in extrajudicial detention.

"We don't know where these people are, and that is a serious violation of their human rights," Choi told RFA. "[Lee's] wife said he called her from Shenzhen, but how did he get there?"

"It is likely that he was illegally kidnapped by the Chinese police or the state security police in Hong Kong, which is a serious violation of the one country, two systems principle," he said.

Lawmaker and Labour Party chairman Lee Cheuk-yan said the idea that Chinese law enforcement could act of their own volition in Hong Kong was "terrifying."

"If we have one territory, two policing systems, then this is really asking for trouble, and it is a total violation of the Basic Law," he said.

‘Mountain out of a molehill’

While Beijing has made no comment so far on the 'disappearance' of the five men, the Global Times newspaper, which has close ties to the Communist Party, said Hong Kong people were "making a mountain out of a molehill" by speculating on Lee's fate.

"The hottest theory is that Lee Bo was detained by mainland law enforcement personnel in a so-called cross border operation," the paper said in a signed commentary article on Monday, pointing to the content of books sold in Causeway Bay Books as a contributing factor.

"A lot of the books they sold harbored malicious content which constituted a serious threat to the right of reputation," it said, without detailing whose reputation had been threatened.

It said such books had begun to circulate across the internal border in mainland China, where political writings are tightly controlled by party censors, "acting as a source of political rumors and causing a certain amount of pernicious impact."

The article, signed by Shan Renping, accused the bookstore of peddling "forbidden books" deliberately targeting mainland Chinese tourists who then bring the books back home with them.

"Some people are crazy enough to want to turn Hong Kong into the last bastion of political opposition to Beijing," it said.

Inquiries made by RFA with Beijing's Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong on Monday had met with no reply by the time of writing.

In May 2014, a court in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on Wednesday handed a 10-year jail term to 79-year-old Hong Kong publisher Yiu Man-tin after he edited a book highly critical of President Xi Jinping.

Earlier this year, the Central Liaison Office acquired control of Hong Kong's Sino United Publishing Co. in a move that gave it control of 80 percent of the book publishing market in the territory.

The liaison office already owns a number of Chinese-language media, including the Wen Wei Po, Ta Kung Pao and Hong Kong Commercial Daily newspapers, as well as the online Orange News.

Reported by Dai Weisen for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.



The Hong Kong Alliance holds a press conference to discuss the fundamental human rights of citizens following the disappearance of a fifth bookstore owner in Hong Kong, Jan. 3, 2016.

Wang Bingzhang
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wang Bingzhang (Chinese: 王炳章; pinyin: Wáng Bǐngzhāng; born December 30, 1947) is a political activist and founder of two Chinese pro-democracy movements. He is considered a political prisoner of China.

Biography[edit]
Wang Bingzhang was born on December 30, 1947, in Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China. He graduated from Beijing Medical University and served as a doctor for eight years. In 1979, he was sponsored by the Chinese government to study abroad in McGill University, Canada where he obtained his Ph.D. degree in pathology in 1982.[1]

In 1982, Wang established China Spring, the first pro-democracy Chinese magazine overseas. In the next year, he launched the "Union of Chinese Democracy Movement" publicly denouncing the one party rule in China. He later traveled back to China and co-founded two opposition parties, the Chinese Freedom Democracy Party and Chinese Democracy Justice Party in 1989 and 1998, respectively. The latter led to his arrest in China. He was expelled from the country, but was not sentenced.[1] In early 2002, Wang was in Thailand where Royal Thai Police investigated him at the bequest of the Communist Party of China. Finding no evidence against him and fearing for his safety, Dr. Wang was urged to leave the country. In June 2002, Wang went to Vietnam with Yue Wu and Zhang Qi where they were abducted by Chinese secret agents. In December 2002, the Chinese government announced his arrest after six months in secret custody.[2]

In February 2003, Wang was sentenced to life in prison, on charges of espionage and terrorism. His trial was closed to the public and lasted for one day. He is imprisoned in Shaoguan Prison in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province, China.[2]

In March 2006, Wang was punished for misbehavior when he locked a guard in his cell with him. Communication with Wang, including visitation rights for family, was cut off, and family was informed that the punishment would last for 3 months. Shortly after, in April 2006, his father died, to which he responded with a hunger strike. This resulted prolonged punishment. Visitation rights were restored in November 2006. According to Dr. Bing Wu Wang, Wang's younger brother, his physical health deteriorated rapidly since the last visitation. This was due, according to Wang, to a new prison warden with lower food quality requirements, harsher physical abuse and intense political study sessions.[3]

Various international organizations, including the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Worldrights, etc., have voiced their opposition to Dr. Wang's imprisonment, saying China is arbitrarily detaining him.[4] The United States and Canadian legislatures have both passed legislative bills in support of Wang and in denunciation of the CPC's actions.[5][6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Bingzhang

again, where is swedish government

Thailand: Activists Forcibly Returned to China

Junta Shows Disdain for International Legal Obligations


Washington, DC) – The Thai government’s forcible return to China of two dissidents recognized as refugees puts them at grave risk of torture and other mistreatment, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the Thai prime minister, General Prayut Chan-ocha.


Thai authorities forcibly returned the Chinese rights and democracy activists, Dong Guangping and Jiang Yefei, to China over the weekend of November 14-15, 2015. Thailand took the action even though the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had informed key Thai government agencies on November 10 that the two had been accepted for refugee resettlement to a third country and would be departing within days.

“Thailand’s forced return of these two rights activists into harm’s way in China after being explicitly told that they were refugees is cruel as well as unlawful,” said Sophie Richardson, China director. “These actions blatantly contradict the pledge to uphold rights that the prime minister made before the UN General Assembly. It’s deeply alarming, if not surprising, that the junta’s deference to abusive neighbors takes priority over the rule of law.”

Returning the two refugees to China – where they are at risk of persecution, arbitrary detention, and possibly torture – constitutes refoulement, which is prohibited under customary international law and violates Thailand’s obligations under article 3 of the Convention against Torture. Individuals who are known to have been involved in issues considered politically sensitive or from certain ethnic or religious groups who have been forcibly returned to China have faced such mistreatment.

Thailand should cease any deportations of UNHCR-recognized refugees or persons of concern who are in the official process of pursuing an asylum claim. Thailand should also ratify the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, and urgently reform its immigration laws to recognize refugee status under law. Thailand should also call on China to reveal the two men’s whereabouts, immediately release them, and permit them to travel abroad to reunite with their families, who have resettled in a third country.

“It seems clear that the forced return of these two activists was a deliberate, premediated rights violation by the Thai junta at China’s behest,” Richardson said. “Prime Minister Prayut should recognize that Thailand is moving toward the sort of pariah status reserved for the most rights-abusing countries, and right these wrongs.”

https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/11/18/thailand-activists-forcibly-returned-china

Thailand Repatriates Chinese Dissidents Who Sought Political Asylum
2015-11-16 


Thai authorities in Bangkok have repatriated five Chinese nationals, including two veteran dissidents who had been granted refugee status by the United Nations, Thailand-based activists told RFA on Monday.

A Bangkok-based democracy activist who gave only his surname Li said Dong Guangping, Jiang Yefei and three other Chinese nationals had been sent back to China on Friday.

"I had planned to go and visit [Jiang and Dong] this morning, but when I got to the immigration detention center, the police officer couldn't find their names," Li said.

"I went to two more departments after that, and they couldn't find them either, until a police officer told me that they had both been sent back to China last Friday," he said. "There was a group of five people in total."

Li said it was unclear whether the five had been sent across the border, or whether Chinese personnel had arrived in Thailand to fetch them.

"We are trying to find that out right now, as well as why the United Nations was unable to protect either of them," he said. "We want to know the reason."

"All of their family and friends had been very worried that this would happen, and we call on the international community to follow their case," Li said.

"This is very serious."

'We are all terrified'

Dong fled China with his family in September after serving a three-year jail term for subversion from 2001-2004, and being “disappeared” and held for eight months in secret detention in 2014. His wife Chu Shuhua remains in Bangkok.

Political cartoonist Jiang had been in Thailand since 2008 when he fled China, where he was detained and tortured after he criticized the ruling Chinese Communist Party's handling of the devastating Sichuan earthquake, and was granted refugee status last April by the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

His wife, Chu Ling, who remains in Bangkok, said the two men had been charged with illegally entering the country before they were deported.

According to Li, Dong and Jiang had pleaded guilty to the charges, and were fined 5,000 (U.S. $139) and 6,000 baht (U.S. $167) respectively for the offense.

However, their guilty plea paved the way for deportation procedures to begin, and the Chinese government had paid the fines on their behalf, he said.

Thailand-based activist Yang Chong said the identities of the other three deportees remains unclear.

"If they were deported to China, then they were definitely Chinese nationals, but we don't know who they are," Yang told RFA on Monday.

He said the deportation had thrown Chinese refugees and activists in Thailand into a state of fear.

"People keep texting me to ask what they should do; we are trying to think of something," Yang said. "Things are pretty dangerous right now; we are all terrified."

Those who apply for political asylum at the UNHCR are issued with a "protection letter" while their application for resettlement is under way, a process which can take years.

'Illegal kidnapping'

Rights activist Cao Jinbo, who arrived in Thailand at the beginning of this month, said the Chinese police had apparently also managed to detain Hong Kong publisher and bookshop-owner Gui Minhai during a visit to Thailand.

"It seems that [China] is already able to arrest people overseas, unofficially, which is illegal kidnapping," Cao told RFA.

He said Beijing's new national security law, enacted on July 1, had enshrined the principle that Chinese law is enforceable overseas.

"A protection letter is of no use at all," Cao said. "Dong and Jiang had already been granted refugee status, but [UNHCR] was unable to guarantee their safety."

Jiang told RFA's Cantonese Service last month that he had fled China in desperation after long-running persecution at the hands of the communist party.

"I am a Protestant Christian, so how could I be happy after two years of persecution by the Chinese Communist Party?" he said in an Oct. 1 interview.

"Every day I prayed to the Lord to annihilate this evil regime."

Believed detained

Earlier this month, four Chinese nationals linked to a Hong Kong bookstore which has stocked titles highly critical of the communist party went missing, believed detained by Chinese authorities.

Owner Gui Minhai was in Thailand at the time, but he, general manager Lu Bo, store manager Lin Rongji, and staff member Zhang Zhiping of publisher and bookstore company Sage Communications are now believed to be in police custody in China.

Fellow Hong Kong publisher Wu Yisan said such heavy-handed tactics will only further alienate the city's residents from Beijing after just 17 years of Chinese rule.

"The [Chinese authorities] should have taken immediate steps to inform the people of Hong Kong, not leave them guessing in a state of fear," Wu said.

Reported by Wen Yuqing and Ho Shan for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/repatriation-11162015113959.html

Fears Grow For Chinese Activists Detained by Thai Police
2015-11-05


http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/fears-grow-for-chinese-activists-detained-by-thai-police-11052015114356.html

Rights groups are calling for the release of two Chinese democracy activists currently held by Thai immigration authorities after seeking political refugee status with the United Nations.

Dong Guangping fled China with his family in September after serving a three-year jail term for subversion from 2001-2004, and being “disappeared” and held for eight months in secret detention in 2014.

Political cartoonist Jiang Yefei had been in Thailand since fleeing China in 2008, where he was detained and tortured after he criticized the ruling Chinese Communist Party's handling of the devastating Sichuan earthquake, and was granted refugee status last April by the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

Chinese officials told his brother in October that Beijing would be seeking his extradition on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power" after he published a number of satirical cartoons targeting President Xi Jinping.

Jiang's wife Chu Ling said Jiang and Dong have both pleaded guilty to the immigration-related charges against them.

"I don't think Jiang Yefei's mental health is very good right now, and he told me that he won't be released," Chu said. "I said he shouldn't have pleaded guilty, because he would be more likely to be repatriated."

"I wasn't able to ask him [why] because there was very limited time," she said. "But I don't accept Jiang Yefei's guilty plea because I think that it was the result of threats or that it was forced out of him."

"He can't read Thai, and we have previously agreed by phone that he won't plead guilty, no matter what happens," Chu said. "If you so much as nod at them, they take that to mean you admit your guilt, and they start working with the Chinese."

She said members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which is banned as an "evil cult" in China, had previously allowed the Thai police to note that they accepted the charges against them, before sending them to China-influenced areas of northern Myanmar close to the Chinese border, where they were eventually repatriated.

She said the UNHCR appears to have underestimated the danger of repatriation.

"UNHCR is of the opinion that repatriation is not allowed here, but the Thai government just sends people back to Myanmar, where the Chinese police are waiting," Chu said.

"The Thai police trick people into admitting their guilt and then deport them immediately, and there is a Chinese arrest warrant out for Jiang Yefei," she said.

Chu said she has also been asked to stay away from underground groups helping Chinese nationals flee China, for fear that they will be charged with harboring fugitives.

"[They] genuinely believe that China has huge power here," she said. "[It's because] Jiang Yefei recently drew some cartoons of Xi Jinping and the Politburo standing committee, which a dictatorial regime will never allow."

"I think Jiang is in a lot of danger; people have told me of similar cases where they have injected people with some kind of drug that makes it look as if they died of a heart attack," she said.

A petition for their release

According to the Dublin-based Frontline Defenders rights group, which this week launched a petition calling on Thailand to release the two men, Jiang's Chinese passport has expired, and it is unclear whether Dong Guangping is in possession of a valid passport,

The petition on the group's website calls on Bangkok to "immediately and unconditionally release Dong Guangping and Jiang Yefei."

The group, which is also known as the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, said the Thai authorities should guarantee human rights defenders the freedom to carry out "legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions."

Thailand-based Chinese activist Lin Dajun said refugees fleeing political persecution in China face a precarious situation once they arrive.

"They are more humane in Thailand, but they might arrest you and they might not," Lin said. "They keep one eye open and the other one closed."

"A lot of people have managed to get refugee status and settlement in a third country, so you can't say Thailand doesn't give anyone a chance; they do," he said.

"Jiang Yefei has already been detained twice by the Thai authorities, and he already has refugee status," Lin said. "They detained him alongside Dong Guangping because the immigration authorities discovered he was illegally resident."

Thailand isn't a signatory to the United Nations covenant on refugees, and doesn't recognize the concept of political asylum, Lin said.

Chinese refugees, once approved by UNHCR, have the option of resettlement in more than 50 countries, he added.

Reported by Xin Lin for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Undoubtedly a ploy to boost poor book sales.

where is Swedish government?

where is Swedish government?

Gui Haiming has swedisch passport, china government kidnapped swedisch citizen in thailand that is holly bullshit

if international community has no reaction then the whole world will be bullshit as well.

The PRC has taken over hong kong so I bet more shady events like this will take place.

Independent Hong Kong Book-Sellers Missing, Believed Detained
2015-11-06  

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/missing-11062015110112.html



香港出版人兼书店老板桂民海（Public Domain）

Four people linked to a Hong Kong bookstore which has stocked titles highly critical of the ruling Chinese Communist Party have been "delayed," believed detained by Chinese authorities, while on a visit to Thailand.

Owner Gui Haiming, general manager Lu Bo, store manager Lin Rongji, and staff member Zhang Zhiping of publisher and bookstore company Sage Communications are believed to be in China after having been detained there or in Thailand, their associates told RFA.

Gui and Lin called their wives to reassure them on Friday, but little information about their whereabouts was forthcoming, according to a fellow Sage shareholder surnamed Li.

"They said they were OK, but they're not OK," Li said. "They just told their loved ones they would be coming back a bit later than expected, and told them not to worry."

"But they didn't answer any questions about where they were or what they were doing," he said.

Gui, who holds a Swedish passport, went missing in mid-October while on a trip to Thailand, where he owns a holiday home, while Lu and Zhang stopped communicating around Oct. 22-24 after trips back to their family homes in mainland China, Li said.




Incommunicado

Li only discovered that Gui, whose company publishes 3-4 books a month on Chinese politics and current affairs, was incommunicado after being contacted by the printers of the next book.

"Usually, he would get back to the printers by the following day if it was urgent, but the printers had been looking for him for a week," he said.

It is unclear where Lin was when he lost contact with friends and family.

"He used to sleep over at the bookstore a lot, so his wife didn't know he was missing," Li said.

Gui has previously published titles critical of the administration of President Xi Jinping, including The Great Depression of 2017, and The Collapse of Xi Jinping in 2017.

Calls to Lu Bo's and Zhang Zhiping's cell phones rang unanswered on Friday, while Lin reportedly owns no cell phone.

Repeated calls to the Shenzhen municipal police department, just across the internal border from Hong Kong, also rang unanswered.

An employee who answered the phone at the Swedish consulate in Hong Kong said the consulate was unaware of the reports.




Others targeted

Gui and his colleagues wouldn't be the first in their profession to be targeted by Beijing.

In May 2014, a court in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on Wednesday handed a 10-year jail term to 79-year-old Hong Kong publisher Yiu Man-tin after he edited a book highly critical of President Xi Jinping.

Earlier this year, Beijing's representative office in Hong Kong bought up a key publishing house in the city, sparking fears of a widening ideological assault on freedom of expression in the former British colony.

The Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in Hong Kong, which formally represents Beijing in the semiautonomous city, recently acquired control of Sino United Publishing.

The liaison office already owns a number of Chinese-language media, including the Wen Wei Po, Ta Kung Pao and Hong Kong Commercial Daily newspapers, as well as the online Orange News.

The move gave Beijing control of more than 80 percent of the publishing industry in Hong Kong, which was promised a high degree of autonomy and the continuation of its existing freedoms under the terms of the city's 1997 handover to China, media reports said.

The three booksellers owned by Sino United are now banned from selling any publications related to "Hong Kong independence," an oblique reference to last year's pro-democracy Occupy Central movement.

Critics said the deal runs counter to the principle of "one country, two systems," under which Beijing negotiated the return of Hong Kong from British rule.

Beijing officials have already publicly hit out at any writings that suggest a "Hong Kong city state" mentality, or even discuss a "Hong Kong identity."

However, recent opinion surveys have shown that a relatively small proportion of Hong Kong residents—just 17 percent in 2012—identify themselves as "Chinese," with a larger proportion describing themselves as "Hong Kong people," or "Hong Kong Chinese."




Dissenting voices

Liu Dawen, former editor of the Hong Kong-based political magazine Outpost, said the "disappearance" of Gui and his colleagues is part of a long-running assault on the city's freedoms waged by Beijing since 2003.

"This started back in 2003, since when they have been determined to wipe out any dissenting voices in Hong Kong," Liu said.

Popular anger over proposed Article 23 legislation on national security and subversion-related crimes culminated in mass demonstrations on the sixth anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China on July 1, 2003.

"Back then, when they wanted to legislate for Article 23, there was a clause in there about wiping out organizations and groups unfriendly to the Chinese Communist Party," Liu said. "It stressed in particular any groups that had been infiltrated by foreign forces."

"A lot of trade unions in Hong Kong were getting funding from the International Labor Organization, while some NGOs were in receipt of overseas funding, which they saw as overseas interference in Hong Kong," he said.

According to Chen Ping, director of Hong Kong Sun TV, self-censorship is a far more pervasive problem in Hong Kong's once-freewheeling media industry than direct control, however.

"Self-censorship plays a big part in this, and China hasn't got to the point of panic about this yet," Chen told RFA.

"Sometimes people in the media will exaggerate [the threat] in their own minds, and censor themselves; this is a very serious problem," he said.

Reported by Hai Nan for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.