Hong Kong’s leader said he was “very concerned” Monday over the disappearance of five booksellers known for publications critical of the Chinese government after a prominent lawmaker accused mainland security officers of kidnapping the men.
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When Lee vanished last Wednesday, he reportedly did not have his travel permit for mainland China with him, triggering speculation that Chinese security agents entered Hong Kong to abduct and spirit him there.
Shares of New World Development and New World China were halted from trading yesterday, pending an announcement related to a takeover or merger, according to separate statements to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Chief Executive Leung Chun Ying has stressed that it is unconstitutional for other law enforcement agencies to make arrests here.
In Lee’s case, his wife told local media that he had called her from a number that indicated he was in Shenzhen, the mainland Chinese city next door to Hong Kong.
Agnes Chow, 19, who was heavily involved in last year’s “Umbrella Movement”, posted the video titled “An Urgent Cry from Hong Kong” to denounce what she calls the “political suppression” of China.
It comes as a letter said to have been handwritten by Mr Lee was published by Taiwan’s Central News Agency. Often derided as a puppet of the party in Beijing, Mr Leung appeared to stand up for Hong Kong’s autonomy by saying that any unauthorised encroachment by mainland agents would be an “unacceptable” breach of the Basic Law, the territory’s mini-constitution.
However, an editorial printed in the Global Times newspaper, a mouthpiece for the Chinese government, on Tuesday, said some were trying to “hype” the incident and turn it into a political issue “to create estrangement between Hong Kong and the mainland”.
When Leung was asked Monday whether he thought the men had been taken to the mainland, he said there was “no indication” and appealed for anyone with information to come forward.
And despite the disappearance of the publishers, Hong Kong’s forbidden books continue attracting customers from the mainland.
At the time, he told me he felt safe in Hong Kong. It was not clear if that meant Lee had been located, and his wife could not be reached for comment. And although it has made extradition and legal cooperation agreements with many countries, including the United States, in the more than 18 years since its return to Chinese sovereignty, there has been no such agreement signed with the mainland, said Simon Young, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong.
Albert Ho, a customer at their shop, said he understood the book the group were working on was about an alleged former mistress of the Chinese president.
Hong Kong opposition legislators protested on Sunday at Beijing’s representative office over Mr Lee’s disappearance.
The quintet were running a unsafe trade in books banned on the mainland for their “explosive” content, chronicling the latest power struggles or gossip about the personal lives of Chinese leaders.
Bo was the fifth Hong Kong bookseller to have disappeared since October 15 2015, four of them within China’s Guangdong province, another while on holiday in Pattaya, Thailand.
In Beijing, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news conference she did not know about the case, and had “no information”.
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Lawmakers including Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing former security chief Regina Ip have urged the government to investigate.
