A Hong Kong bookseller who said he was blindfolded, interrogated and detained in China led a protest march yesterday defying Beijing as pressure grows for authorities to answer questions over the case.
Lam Wing-kei (林榮基) is one of five booksellers who went missing last year — all worked for a publisher known for salacious titles about leading Chinese politicians.
The case heightened fears that Beijing was tightening its grip on semi-autonomous Hong Kong, with Lam’s explosive revelations earlier this week about how he had been detained in China further fanning many residents’ concerns.
Photo: Reuters
Lam yesterday told reporters that he did not feel afraid after breaking bail, refusing to return to the mainland and breaking silence on his detention.
“I don’t feel scared, because there are so many people here,” said Lam, surrounded by more than 1,000 supporters who had gathered in Hong Kong to protest against his detention and to demand answers from the city’s authorities over the booksellers’ case.
“I’m happy to be back in Hong Kong,” he said.
He added that he had been contacted by the city’s police, but had not yet responded to them.
He would give no details about where he was now living.
Leading the rally, he shouted slogans including: “Say no to authority” and “Hong Kong has a bottom line.”
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.
Pro-democracy lawmakers are demanding to know what Hong Kong authorities have done to help the booksellers, accusing officials of being puppets of Beijing.
They said China has violated the semi-autonomous system under which the city is ruled.
Protester Simon Chan, 60, said that it was time for people to speak up.
“If we don’t voice out, then this will just continue and we will be very scared,” he told reporters.
Beijing has refused to be drawn on Lam’s accusations, saying only that it is entitled to pursue the case as he broke mainland Chinese laws.
Hong Kong authorities have expressed “concern,” saying they are attempting to speak to Lam.
Pro-democracy lawmakers are urging the Hong Kong government to admit what it knows about the case.
“I request that the government clearly explain what they have done to help Lam or the other Causeway Bay bookstore workers in these past eight months. If they don’t, then they’re not our government,” Hong Kong Legislator Frederick Fung (馮檢基) said.
In an editorial yesterday, the South China Morning Post, which has recently been criticized for being too Beijing-friendly, also demanded that both sides “come clean.”
Lam said he was allowed to return to Hong Kong on Tuesday last week on condition that he go back over the border on Thursday, bringing with him a hard disk listing the bookstore’s clients.
He said he did not want to hand over the records and decided to speak out instead.
Lam is one of four Hong Kong booksellers under investigation in mainland China for trading books banned by Beijing.
The fifth, Lee Bo (李波), the only bookseller to disappear on Hong Kong soil, has said he is simply helping with inquiries and is currently back in the city.
He has rejected Lam’s claims that Lee told him he had been taken to the mainland against his will.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS