One of the five Hong Kong booksellers who went missing late a year ago has provided an explosive account of his detention and mistreatment by Chinese authorities in the case widely regarded as the most serious violation of Hong Kong’s autonomy by Beijing since its handover from British rule.
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In a news conference at Hong Kong’s Legislative Council building, Lam told reporters he was detained at Chinese immigration when crossing the border to visit his girlfriend in the neighboring city of Shenzhen last October, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported.
Causeway Bay Books, the store at which the five men worked, had specialised in publishing and selling gossipy books about China’s leaders, including President Xi Jinping.
Lam said his colleague Lee Po, also known as Lee Bo, had confirmed to him that had been abducted by Chinese agents from Hong Kong itself, something that would directly convene the “one country, two systems” pledge.
“The circumstances of the disappearances were suspicious; the fifth person who disappeared from Hong Kong SAR territory seems to have been abducted”, the report says, adding that two of the booksellers hold European Union citizenship.
He was “mentally tortured” for eight months and forced to sign a document agreeing not to inform his family about his situation and gave up his right to hire a lawyer. “He somehow united all the Hong Kong people and we realized that the dirty hand of the tyrants is getting closer and every one of us is at risk”.
He also described how he recited a scripted confession on Chinese state television, admitting to trading banned books, out of fear. “I don’t dare go back there”, he said.
“I want to tell the whole world: Hong Kongers will not bow down to brute force”, he said. One of the authors of books published by Mighty Current, who lives in the West, says that Lam’s defiant press conference notwithstanding, a climate of fear reigns among the stable of writers.
Cross-border law enforcement of this kind is evidence that Beijing has failed to keep its promises under the “one country, two systems” principle and infringed human rights, Lam said. As a lifelong Hong Kong native, he said, he felt compelled to speak out “or Hong Kong won’t be saved”. This is the bottom line of the Hong Kong people.
Lam told how he was blindfolded and taken by train to the city of Ningbo, where he was kept in a 18-square-meter room for five months under guard.
But Lam said Lee had told him he had been brought to the mainland against his will.
The protesters, carrying banners that read: “Fight until the very end”, marched from Causeway Bay Books, the business at the center of the controversy, to China’s liaison office in the territory.
Beijing has refused to be drawn on Mr Lam’s accusations, saying only that it is entitled to pursue the case as he broke mainland Chinese laws. “Lam Wing-kee never told me it was contrary to mainland laws to sell these books through mailing”.
State-backed firms such as CITIC Ltd and Haitong Securities have expanded into Hong Kong and taken prime offices, betting they can ride out the downturn with strong backing from their mainland parents. “I think after the speech, he is no longer able to go back to the mainland, or maybe mainland police will come for him”.
“If I myself, being the least vulnerable among the five booksellers, remained silent, Hong Kong would become hopeless”, Lam said.
Hong Kong lawmakers say residents have been left “petrified” by explosive revelations from a city bookseller about his detention in China and have slammed Beijing for violating freedoms.
“I am trying to save my job by following different Asian markets than just focusing on Hong Kong”, said one head of institutional equities at a European bank.
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China today attempted to deflect global criticism over the kidnapping and torture of a Hong Kong bookseller by Chinese police for eight months by mounting a sharp attack on CIA’s brutal interrogation techniques in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. One of the five Hong Kong booksellers wh.
