A Chinese journalist who disappeared while seeking refuge in Thailand on Wednesday told his wife by telephone that he had returned to China and was being held by the police, she said.
The 10-minute call was the first sign of life the journalist, Li Xin (李新), had given to his wife, He Fangmei (何芳梅), since he disappeared near Thailand’s border with Laos last month.
Li had been trying for months to avoid returning to China, fearing that he would be persecuted there for having revealed that state security operatives had coerced him into becoming an informant, and for having described censorship in the state-run news media.
“He said: ‘Wife, it’s me, Li Xin,’” the wife said by telephone from her home in Henan Province.
“He said that he’d returned to China voluntarily and was under investigation, but he didn’t say where he was in China,” she said.
“He told me to celebrate the new year holiday with his family and to make sure I kept healthy,” she said.
Li had been an editor for the Web site of the Southern Metropolitan Daily, a popular and sometimes combative Chinese newspaper. Neither the Chinese nor the Thai governments had said whether they were holding Li.
Asked about the case on Wednesday, Thai authorities said immigration records indicated that Li was still in Thailand. Sek Wannamethee, a spokesman for the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said there was no “record as yet as to whether he has left the country.”
“There is no indication whatsoever that Mr Li Xin was abducted from Thailand,” Sek said in a message, without elaborating.
However, He said that the telephone call from her husband indicated that he had become the latest in a series of Chinese citizens or foreigners with Chinese ancestry who have been impelled while abroad to go to China to cooperate with secretive inquiries.
Critics have said that these people are victims of illicit renditions by increasingly bold Chinese security forces, and He said she believed that Li would have returned to China only under force or threats, despite his assertion that he came back freely.
“His tone was like they’d given him guidance,” He said.
She said her husband sounded calm, but that he had told her not to interrupt him with questions.
“I said to him: ‘Where are you? Just where are you? Tell me. At the very least, I have to find a lawyer for you,’” He said. “But the line was silent for a long time, and I knew someone at his side was telling him what to say, and he said: ‘Don’t get involved. Don’t ask so much. I’m doing fine.’”
Li did not specify why he was under investigation, referring only to “that case,” He said, adding that she took that to refer to claims that Li made, after arriving in India in October last year, that Chinese state security agents had coerced him into becoming an informant against fellow journalists and friends who worked for civic groups.
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