Rights campaigners yesterday dismissed an apparent confession by a missing Hong Kong bookseller paraded on Chinese state television as “worthless” and a “smokescreen” as the territory’s leader distanced himself from the case.
Swedish national Gui Minhai (桂民海), co-owner of publishing house Mighty Current (巨流), who went missing while on vacation Thailand in October last year, is one of five missing men connected to the publishing house — known for salacious titles critical of the Chinese government — and its store Causeway Bay Books (銅鑼灣圖書).
Their disappearance has sparked alarm in the territory, which is guaranteed a range of freedoms not seen in China.
In his confession on state broadcaster CCTV on Sunday, Gui said he had returned to China to “take legal responsibilities” for killing a college student in a car accident 11 years ago.
Weeping, Gui said he had fled China after he was convicted of the crime, despite only receiving a two-year suspended sentence.
Amnesty International’s East Asia director Nicholas Bequelin said Gui’s confession raised more questions than answers.
“From the legal standpoint the video is worthless. Where is he? Under what authority is he detained? What are the circumstances under which he gave this interview? We cannot exclude the possibility that he made the statement under duress,” he said.
The disappearances have fueled growing unease in Hong Kong over the erosion of freedoms in the semi-autonomous territory, which was handed back to China from Britain in 1997.
However, despite deep public concern, Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) refused to discuss Gui’s case.
“The Gui Minhai case has not been reported to the Hong Kong police or the Hong Kong government,” he told reporters at a financial forum in Hong Kong.
Swedish Deputy Minister of Finance Per Bolund — also speaking at the financial forum — said Stockholm “is quite concerned about the development” and asked for more “openness” from the Chinese authorities, according to the South China Morning Post.
The Swedish consulate in Hong Kong said it had no comment.
Leung said he attached “great importance” to any new information on Lee Bo (李波), a major shareholder of Causeway Bay Books, who has been missing in Hong Kong since Dec. 30 last year.
The other three men went missing from southern Chinese cities. Lee’s disappearance raised fears that Chinese security authorities were working in Hong Kong’s territory, against the territory’s laws.
A letter, purportedly from Lee, was published on Sunday, taking aim at Gui on Hong Kong news Web site Headline Daily.
“He killed a person in a drink-driving crash and irresponsibly fled overseas. This time he has implicated me,” it said, without giving any further detail.
Lee Cheuk-yan, a pro-democracy lawmaker in Hong Kong, said of the Gui confession that China was “trying to hide the fact that they are detaining him for the bookstore.”
“The traffic accident has nothing to do with it and there was nothing in the video that says how he ended up in China,” he said, describing the broadcast as a “smokescreen.”
CCTV’s Web site ran a news report in 2005, in which a man named Gui Minhai was said to have fled overseas in 2004 after he was given a two-year suspended sentence for killing a 23-year-old college student in the eastern city of Ningbo.
While the report could relate to the missing Swedish national, there are nevertheless discrepancies.
CCTV said Gui was 46 in 2005, but on Sunday, Xinhua news agency gave his current age as 51.
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