In a series of at least 10 e-mails reviewed by reporters, Causeway Bay Books (銅鑼灣圖書) shareholder Lee Bo (李波), whose bookstore specialized in gossipy publications about Chinese leaders, said he feared a missing colleague had been taken by agents from China for “political reasons.”
Lee himself went missing in December last year, weeks after he sent the e-mails to the daughter of his colleague, Gui Minhai (桂民海), co-owner of Mighty Current (巨流) publishing house, who is still being held in China.
“We fear that he [Gui] was taken by special agents from China for political reasons,” Lee said in one of the e-mails dated Nov. 10.
Photo: AP
Many people in Hong Kong and some foreign diplomats fear Chinese agents illegally captured both Lee, a Hong Kong citizen and British passport holder, and Gui, a Swedish national.
China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. China has said its law enforcement officials would never do anything illegal, especially not overseas.
Lee and four associates went missing over the past half year, sparking fears Chinese authorities were overriding the “one country, two systems” formula protecting Hong Kong’s freedoms since its return from British rule in 1997.
Lee said on Chinese television last week that he had not been kidnapped, but had sneaked into China illegally to help with an investigation. Chinese authorities were treating him well, and he planned to renounce his British citizenship, he said.
His statement came after a British Foreign Office report last month said it was likely Lee had been “involuntarily removed” to China from Hong Kong.
Gui, Lee and another colleague remain in custody at an undisclosed location in China.
In a tearful confession on Chinese state TV in mid-January, Gui said he had voluntarily turned himself in to Chinese authorities.
His daughter, Angela Gui, said at the time the confession appeared “ridiculous” and contrived.
Angela Gui, who was born and raised in Sweden and is now studying in Britain, said that she believed Lee had been pressured into making the confession.
Lee wrote an e-mail to Angela Gui asking if she knew that her father, who disappeared from Pattaya, Thailand, in October last year, had been missing for more than 20 days.
In the series of e-mails forwarded to Reuters by Angela Gui, dated from Nov. 10 to Nov. 15, Lee appealed to her to take her father’s disappearance to international human rights groups.
“According to [Gui Minhai’s wife’s] words retold by the watchman of the building, he left the apartment with several men who claimed to be his friends,” Lee said in the e-mail. “Perhaps you can do something, and there are a lot of [his] friends ready to help if you need them. Do tell me what you think and what you want us to do.”
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