A senior Hong Kong delegation is to head to Beijing for talks following explosive revelations by a bookseller who said he was detained for eight months on the Chinese mainland, the city’s leader said yesterday.
Lam Wing-kei (林榮基), 61, has said he was seized after crossing the border into the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, taken away blindfolded and then kept in a cell without access to a lawyer for alleged involvement in bringing banned books into the mainland.
The case has laid bare growing anxiety that the semi-autonomous city’s freedoms are disappearing.
Lam was one of five employees of Causeway Bay Books — which published gossipy books about leading Chinese politicians — to go mysteriously last year. All later emerged in mainland China.
Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) said a team of senior officials would visit Beijing today to discuss Lam’s case and review the “existing notification mechanism between the two places.”
Under that mechanism, authorities in mainland China are required to give clear details about arrests and detentions of Hong Kong citizens over the border, a procedure critics said went disastrously wrong in the booksellers’ case.
“[Officials] will go to Beijing tomorrow morning ... [and] meet with relevant departments in order to improve the existing mechanism. It will be a comprehensive and in-depth review,” Leung told reporters.
He added that authorities in Beijing would also brief the Hong Kong officials, including the city’s secretary for justice and security for security as well as the commissioner of police and director of immigration, on Lam’s case.
Lam was due to lead a pro-democracy march Friday to mark the 19th anniversary of the city’s handover from Britain to China, but pulled out at the last minute citing a “serious threat” to his security.
Hong Kong Secretary of Security Lai Tung-kwok (黎棟國) said Lam had filed a report over his claims and an investigation was under way.
The Hong Kong government has been accused of dragging its feet over the booksellers’ case, with residents demanding to know what authorities have done to try to help them. There have also been accusations China has illegally sent its security agents to operate in Hong Kong.
Causeway Bay Books shareholder Lee Bo (李波) disappeared on Hong Kong soil, spurring fears that he was detained by Chinese personnel.
Hong Kong was returned by Britain to China in 1997 under a deal which allows it freedoms unseen on the Chinese mainland, but there is concern they are being eroded.
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