Tag Archives: Lee Bo

Hong Kong missing booksellers: Lee Bo back in mainland China

A Hong Kong publisher who went missing for nearly three months is reportedly back in mainland China – a few hours after returning to Hong Kong.

Lee Bo was escorted into a car that drove him to mainland China

Lee Bo was escorted into a car that drove him to mainland China, local media said

Lee Bo, a British citizen, was widely believed to have been abducted and taken to mainland China late last year along with four of his colleagues. Continue reading

HK booksellers ‘to be released soon’

a bookshop and publishers which sold books critical of China

All the men were linked to a bookshop and publishers which sold books critical of China

Police in Guangdong said in a letter to the Hong Kong force that Lui Bo, Lam Wingkei and Cheung Jiping would be bailed pending investigations. Continue reading

International publishers urge Chief Executive to take action on missing booksellers

18 February 2016, Hermina Wong

Publishing and bookselling associations based in the US and Europe have penned a joint letter to Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, urging him to take action on the missing Causeway Bay booksellers. Continue reading

Free Expression, Publishing, and Bookselling Organizations Urge Hong Kong to Take Action on Missing Booksellers

Five booksellersThe Honorable Leung Chun-ying
Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

1 Tim Wa Avenue
Admiralty
Hong Kong

February 17, 2016

Your Excellency Chief Executive Leung: Continue reading

Author linked to missing Hong Kong publishers calls on Beijing to free them

Tom Phillips in Beijing, Friday 5 February 2016 04.32 GMT

Writer Xi Nuo says five men should not be punished for his book about China’s president, which prompted a crackdown on publishers in Hong Kong

HK Books

These books about the Chinese president Xi Jinping are banned on the mainland but on sale in Hong Kong. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP

The author of a provocative book about the private life of Chinese president Xi Jinping that some blame for Beijing’s decision to seize five Hong Kong booksellers has urged China to release the men.

Xi Nuo, a Chinese writer who is based in the United States, told the BBC he was one of two authors behind what is reportedly a largely fictitious work about the president’s romantic life called Xi Jinping and His Lovers.

Some believe the detention of the group – which includes Lee Bo, a British citizen, and Swedish passport-holder Gui Minhai – was designed to stop that book’s publication and halt what the Communist party saw as a smear campaign against president Xi.

Gui and Lee’s Mighty Current publishing house had specialised in salacious but often thinly sourced exposés about China’s political elite.

Speaking to the BBC, Xi Nuo, who is no relation to the Chinese president, said: “I’m responsible for this so I want to publish this book and tell the Chinese government: the five booksellers, they are innocent.

“They are not responsible for this. I’m responsible for this. I want to … tell the Chinese government: let the five guys go home,” he added.

On Thursday, Chinese police confirmed for the first time that three of the five booksellers were being investigated for “illegal activities” in China, in a letter sent to Hong Kong police.

The three men – Lui Por, Cheung Chi-ping and Lam Wing-kee, who were linked to the Causeway Bay Books shop – had had “criminal compulsory measures” imposed on them, Chinese police in the southern province of Guangdong said in the letter.

Xi Nuo said he had completed his book on the president for Gui’s company in 2014. However, he claimed Gui decided not to publish after receiving a visit from a Chinese government agent.

Last year Gui appears to have changed his mind.

Before he was detained in December, Lee Bo told the Guardian he suspected his friend’s disappearance was connected to imminent plans to publish a mysterious and highly sensitive book.

Those plans never materialised, with Gui vanishing from his holiday home in Thailand in mid-October, before the book could be released.

However, a version of the salacious tome appeared online last month.

Xi Nuo said he decided to publish the book online in order to challenge Beijing, adding: “Why doesn’t the government come to New York and sue us?”

The apparent abductions of Lee and Gui, from Hong Kong and Thailand respectively, have infuriated Beijing’s critics and the international community, who accuse the Chinese government of trampling on international law and Hong Kong’s judicial autonomy in order to hunt down its foes.

Last month Gui was paraded on television to make a televised “confession” that his daughter suggested he had been forced to make.

British and Swedish officials have been refused access to Lee and Gui, who are understood to be in the custody of Chinese security services.

This week the US said it was “deeply concerned” about the fate of the booksellers and urged China to allow the men to return home.

The scandal has sent a chill through Hong Kong’s supposedly free publishing world, which has traditionally been able to produce books outlawed in the authoritarian mainland thanks to the “one country, two systems” model introduced on its return to China in 1997.

Bao Pu, one of the former British colony’s most prominent publishers of political literature, told the New York Times he was considering quitting the industry in the wake of recent events.

“I think pretty much we’re done,” he said.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/05/author-book-missing-hong-kong-publishers-beijing-free-them

China Has Finally Told Hong Kong It Is Holding the 3 Missing Booksellers

Simon Lewis Updated: Feb. 5, 2016 4:02 AM

In total, five men connected to Mighty Current Media are being held on the Mainland

GUI Minhai-HK

Placards showing missing bookseller Lee Bo (L) and his associate Gui Minhai (R) are seen left by members of the Civic party outside the China liaison office in Hong Kong on Jan. 19, 2016. Philippe Lopez—AFP/Getty Images

Chinese authorities have confirmed that they are holding all five men linked to a Hong Kong publishing house who went missing in recent weeks. Continue reading

China extends reach to take Hong Kong’s freedom of speech away

Nathan VanderKlippe
HONG KONG — The Globe and Mail

hong-kong21nw1Lee Bo had reason to be suspicious when he got a phone call just before 6 p.m. on Dec. 30 from someone who wanted to place an order for 10 copies of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. The bookseller didn’t know the caller, a potential red flag at a fraught time. Four of Mr. Lee’s colleagues had vanished months earlier, shocking Hong Kong and raising worry that China is abducting people it wants to silence. Continue reading

Book on Chinese president pulled as fears grow for missing Hong Kong publishers

US-based writer Yu Jie says publication of Xi Jinping’s Nightmare was halted as the industry ‘wants to stay out of trouble’ after five booksellers have vanished

Yu Jie

Chinese dissident author Yu Jie. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

The author of a book which criticises Chinese president Xi Jinping has said its publication has been suspended in Hong Kong, because its publisher was fearful of the “huge consequences” of its release, following the mysterious disappearance of five of the city’s publishers in recent months. Continue reading