The EU ambassador to China yesterday said he expects Chinese authorities to immediately release Swedish citizen and Hong Kong-based bookseller Gui Minhai (桂民海), echoing demands from Stockholm.
Sweden confirmed on Tuesday that Gui, who has published books on the personal lives of Chinese Communist Party leaders, was taken into custody at the weekend while traveling with Swedish diplomats to seek medical treatment in Beijing.
EU Ambassador to China Hans Dietmar Schweisgut told reporters at a briefing that the EU “fully supports” Sweden’s efforts to resolve the issue with China.
“We expect the Chinese authorities to immediately release Gui Minhai from detention and to allow him to reunite with his family, to get consulate support and medical support in line with his rights, because he is a Swedish citizen and also a citizen of the European Union,” Schweisgut said.
Gui was abducted in Thailand while on holiday in 2015, one of five Hong Kong booksellers who went missing that year and later appeared in custody in China. The four others have returned to Hong Kong.
Chinese authorities said Gui was freed in October last year after serving a two-year sentence for a traffic offense in 2003.
The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an earlier statement that, before Gui’s latest detention, it had been “repeatedly assured” by Chinese authorities that Gui was a free man and that it could “have any contact” with him.
It has said it expects China to release Gui so that he can meet diplomatic and medical staff, and has also twice summoned China’s ambassador to Sweden to explanation the situation.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday said it had no specific information on Gui, who his daughter, Angela, says was taken off a train by plainclothes police while en route to the capital to get medical attention for a neurological ailment.
Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) said then that Sweden and China enjoy good communication and “if there are any problems ... [we] can conduct timely and effective dialogue. This is no problem at all.”
The Chinese Ministry of Public Security has not responded to a request for comment.
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