Lam’s revelations have heightened fears that Hong Kong residents and Chinese-born critics overseas could be abducted wherever they live.
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“I think they’re the ones who are the conspirators”, Lam said.
At the press conference last Thursday, Lam said he was intercepted and abducted by a “central special unit”, not the regular police, at the Chinese side of the border crossing on October 24, 2015.
Lam said he was detained October 24 after he crossed into the neighboring mainland city of Shenzhen, blindfolded and taken by train to another city, where he was confined to a small room for months and interrogated about the publishing company’s authors and customers.
There, he was kept in solitary confinement for for five months and was so depressed he contemplated suicide.
Lam also said that a confession that he had made and which has been broadcast on Chinese television had been scripted, edited and supervised by a director. According to Lam, he was on his way back to mainland China with the hard drive – containing the personal information of 600 customers – when he made a decision to call Ho. That was when Lam and four other booksellers, who published gossipy and often scandalous books on the personal lives and power struggles of China’s senior Communist Party leaders, had mysteriously disappeared.
One of the booksellers, Lam Wing-kee, said this week he had been held in captivity for eight months by Chinese agents.
“Canada continues to urge China and Hong Kong authorities to adhere to their human rights obligations, to prevent the occurrence of similar apprehensions in the future”, she said.
They’ve also prompted the Hong Kong government to make a public response.
The disappearance of Mr. Lam and four other booksellers a year ago raised fears that Chinese authorities are seizing critics to silence them, and in some cases reaching across state borders to do so.
When NPC Chairman Mr. Zhang Dejiang held a meeting with several LegCo members in Hong Kong on 18 May, I had already pointed to him that the Lee Bo incident had shocked the world and made many Hong Kong people anxious and frightened, as the mainland authorities had violated the Basic Law and the policy of “One Country Two Systems”.
Lam, who has described himself as “less burdened” than his colleagues, meaning that he is less susceptible to manipulation by China, said he is certain that Beijing is now merely trying to cover its tracks by throwing its weight publicly behind the narrative agreed with the other booksellers. Lee Po, another bookseller who also showed up on Phoenix TV with a confession, declined to confirm Lam’s claims, telling South China Morning Post reporters, “Talk about your story as you wish”. “It became clear to me that this incident concerned not just our little bookstore, but the rights of all people in Hong Kong”.
However, on Friday last week Lee disputed that account on Facebook, saying he never told Lam how he got to China and never said he was taken against his will.
Just a year earlier Lam had led an ordinary life, managing a small bookshop, but he now found himself thrust into the center of an extraordinary political storm that had called into question Hong Kong’s relationship with its Chinese rulers.
Critics have accused the Hong Kong government of being a Beijing puppet that can no longer protect its own citizens, and are demanding to know what authorities have done to try to help the booksellers.
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Lam does admit he broke bail last week, during what was supposed to be a one-day release from house arrest. The others have given exclusive interviews to pro-Beijing publications. Lam said that Chinese authorities had told him Gui would be sent to jail sometime between September and December.
