Hong Kong demands answers from mainland police after 5 booksellers go missing

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Hong Kong demands answers from mainland Chinese police after five booksellers go missing

Protests held on Sunday outside Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong amid fears that five men may have been secretly apprehended by mainland agents

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 03 January, 2016, 6:14pm
UPDATED : Monday, 04 January, 2016, 1:40am

Phila Siu
[email protected]



League of Social Democrats (LSD) protest against the mysterious disappearance of bookstore staff from Western Police Station to Liaison Office. Photo: Felix Wong

Hong Kong police are seeking *answers from their mainland counterparts over the mysterious disappearance of a bookseller and his associates involved in publications critical of the Chinese Communist Party, amid fears they might have been secretly *detained by law enforcement personnel from across the border.

While there was no official confirmation as to what had really happened to them, their case sparked protests at Beijing’s liaison office in Sai Wan yesterday.

Demonstrators expressed outrage that mainland agents may have overstepped their bounds in apprehending Causeway Bay Books majority shareholder Lee Bo in Hong Kong and then spiriting him across the border in a serious infringement of the “one country, two systems” principle.

Acting Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu said police were conducting a “thorough and professional” investigation, including looking at CCTV footage from around the location where the bookseller was last seen.

The scope of the investigation would also be extended to examine the last people the missing man had contacted, he said.

“Through an established mechanism, Hong Kong police can make inquiries to the mainland law enforcement agencies on whether any Hong Kong people have been detained on the mainland,” the acting security chief said. “Hong Kong police have already done this ... We are waiting for a reply.”



Concerned parties fear that mainland agents apprehended the bookstore owner secretly in Hong Kong and then spirited him across to Shenzhen. Photo: Felix Wong

He stressed that the only people who could enforce the law in Hong Kong were the city’s own relevant authorities, and the law protected everyone here.

The minister in charge of mainland affairs, Raymond Tam Chi-yuen, said he did not want to comment on speculative reports but stressed that all of the government’s offices on the mainland would provide assistance to Hongkongers who needed help.

The chief executive’s close confidante, executive councillor Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fun, said: “If mainland officers really came to Hong Kong to carry out law enforcement actions, and took people into the mainland, that would be a serious violation of the ‘one country, two systems’ policy.”



Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers say they'll press the government for answers after five employees from the Causeway Bay bookstore went missing. Photo: AP

But she also cautioned against too much speculation, citing President Xi Jinping’s assurance to the chief executive last month that the central government would be unshaken in its commitment to the policy.

Lee Bo, 65, was last seen on Wednesday in the Chai Wan warehouse of Mighty Current, the publishing house that owns the bookstore. He vanished weeks after his four associates went missing in similar circumstances.

Background: Controversial Hong Kong bookseller becomes fifth man to go missing in mysterious circumstances

Gui Minhai, owner of the publishing house, disappeared while on holiday in Thailand.

Missing person reports were made about three others who disappeared after visiting the mainland separately: bookstore manager Lam Wing-kei; general manager of the publishing house Lui Bo; and business manager, Cheung Jiping.

Lee’s wife has said her husband called her from Shenzhen the night he disappeared. He told her he was “assisting in an investigation” about the missing associates. She found it strange that Lee talked to her in Putonghua instead of Cantonese.

But a police source told the Post earlier there was no record of Lee leaving the city.







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