Chinese State Terrorism

Sweden will press China to release publisher despite video criticism
REUTERS

Gui Minhai's forced confession

STOCKHOLM/HONG KONG--Sweden said on Saturday it would keep pressing China to release Swedish citizen and publisher Gui Minhai, even after he was shown in a filmed interview criticizing Stockholm for "sensationalizing" his case.
Gui was shown in an interview with journalists posted online overnight, making a statement that Amnesty International and other campaign groups said could have been staged. 

There was no immediate reaction to the rights groups from Chinese authorities.
The former Hong Kong-based publisher of books critical of China's leaders, was abducted in Thailand in 2015. 

He was one of five people in the Hong Kong book trade who went missing that year and later appeared in mainland Chinese custody.
After being partially released from Chinese custody late last year, he was seized last month by 10 plainclothes Chinese agents onboard a Beijing-bound train while in the presence of two Swedish diplomats.
In the latest twist of the saga, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post posted clips of Gui speaking to journalists about his case.
Gui, who has a Swedish passport, appeared relaxed at times in the footage. 

But Amnesty International said the comments given to largely pro-establishment media outlets appeared to have been staged.
"It's certainly a forced confession," William Nee, a China researcher with Amnesty International, told Hong Kong's public broadcaster RTHK. 

"The fact that he's kind of repeating talking points that the (Chinese) government wants to put out ... and as far as we know he's in incommunicado detention. He doesn't have lawyers of his choice or consular access right now."
In the video Gui said that Sweden had tried to get him out of China to Sweden, under the pretext of seeking medical treatment.
"During the journey, they (the Swedish officials) asked me not to get off the train, for fear it would catch other people's attention," Gui said in the online footage.
"I regret this very much now.
"Looking back, I might have become Sweden's chess piece. I broke the law again under their instigation. My wonderful life has been ruined and I would never trust the Swedish ever again."
Swedish foreign ministry spokeswoman Katarina Byrenius Roslund, defended Stockholm's position.
"This video changes nothing. We continue to demand that our citizen be given the opportunity to meet with Swedish diplomatic staff and medical staff," she said in an email to Reuters.
Gui added he was still involved in an unspecified court case involving an "illegal business" and wasn't able to leave China. 

Other details of Gui's charges and detention weren't specified in the video clips.
Gui's daughter, Angela, who is now studying in England and has been highly critical of the Chinese government's handling of her father's case, wasn't immediately available for comment.
Amid reports that Gui's health has worsened, Gui said in the interview that he had spinal and muscle problems, but that this wasn't Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, as some had suggested.
China's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the interview and whether Gui had been forced into giving it.

Chinese State Hooliganism

EU, Sweden call for China to release detained publisher
AP

In this June 18, 2016, file photo, freed Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee stands next to a placard with picture of missing bookseller Gui Minhai, in front of his book store in Hong Kong as the protesters are marching to the Chinese central government's liaison office. Gui, who was secretly detained in China has been taken away by Chinese authorities again after being released into house arrest last October, his daughter said Monday, Jan. 22, 2018. 

BEIJING— The European Union on Wednesday joined Sweden in calling on China to immediately release a Swedish book publisher who was taken off a train in front of his country's diplomats by Chinese police four days ago.
The Chinese foreign ministry on Wednesday indicated Gui Minhai, the Hong Kong-based book publisher, and the Swedish diplomats who were with him may have been breaking Chinese law.
Gui was first abducted in 2015, one of five Hong Kong booksellers whose disappearances became a symbol of the extent to which China was willing to reinforce its hard line on squelching political dissent and a free press — despite international criticism.
The office of EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said it "fully supports the public statement and efforts of the Swedish government" on Gui's behalf.
"We expect the Chinese authorities to immediately release Mr. Gui from detention, allow him to reunite with his family and to receive consular and medical support in line with his rights," it said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallstrom said in a news release that China has given no clear explanation for Gui's detention. 

Sweden has already summoned China's ambassador in the Scandinavian country over the 53-year-old's case.
"We take a very serious view of the detention on Saturday of Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, with no specific reason being given for the detention, which took place during an ongoing consular support mission," Wallstrom said in her statement.
"We expect the immediate release of our fellow citizen, and that he be given the opportunity to meet Swedish diplomatic and medical staff," she said.
Wallstrom said the Swedish diplomats accompanying Gui had been "providing consular assistance to a Swedish citizen in need of medical care.
"This was perfectly in line with basic international rules giving us the right to provide our citizens with consular support," she said.
Gui had been running a Hong Kong publishing company specializing in tales about high-level Chinese politics when he disappeared from his Thai holiday home about two years ago. 

He had been spirited away by Chinese security agents to mainland China, where he later turned up in police custody. 

In a videotaped confession that was coerced, Gui stated that he'd turned himself in to mainland authorities over a hit-and-run accident.
He was released into house arrest in October in the eastern city of Ningbo, living in what his daughter Angela called a police-managed apartment.
His daughter told Radio Sweden, the English-language service of national broadcaster Sveriges Radio, that her father was on a train with two Swedish diplomats on Saturday when a group of police officers seized him.
She said her father was traveling to Beijing to see a Swedish doctor after he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurological disease that he developed while in custody.
Gui's 2015 abduction reinforced rising fears that Beijing was chipping away at the rule of law in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese city that is promised civil liberties such as freedom of speech until 2047.
The books Gui and his colleagues sold at their Causeway Bay Bookshop were popular with visitors from mainland China, where such titles are banned.

Chinese authorities have a history of continuing to persecute political prisoners even after their release from prison and other legal strictures.
Noted human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng recently disappeared back into custody after five years of prison and three more years confined by guards at home. 

Liu Xia, the wife of the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, has been held a virtual prisoner for years despite never being charged.
Since her husband's death in July while serving a prison sentence, Liu has had virtually no contact with friends or family and the authorities will not say where she is currently being held.

Bookseller Gui Minhai 'half free' after being detained in China for two years

Hong Kong publisher who specialised in books about China’s political elite vanished from Thailand in 2015
By Tom Phillips in Beijing

Earlier this week Chinese authorities claimed Gui had been released on 17 October although his daughter disputed that claim. 

A Swedish bookseller who spent more than two years in custody after his abduction by Chinese agents is now “half free”, a friend has claimed, amid suspicions he is still being held under guard by security officials in eastern China.
Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong-based publisher who specialised in books about China’s political elite, mysteriously vanished from his Thai holiday home in October 2015. 

He later reappeared in mainland China where he was imprisoned on charges relating to a deadly drunk-driving incident more than a decade earlier.
Gui’s disappearance – and that of four other booksellers, including one British citizen – was seen as part of a wider crackdown on Communist party opponents that has gripped China since Xi Jinping took power in 2012.
Details of Gui’s two-year detention have remained murky but he is understood to have been held for at least part of that time in the eastern port city of Ningbo. 

Earlier this week Chinese authorities claimed he had been released on 17 October, although Gui’s daughter, Angela, disputed that claim on Tuesday, telling the Guardian he had yet to contact her and appeared still to be in “some sort of custody”.
On Friday, after several days of uncertainty about Gui’s whereabouts, reports emerged that appeared to confirm his partial release.
Bei Ling, a Boston-based dissident writer and friend, said Gui was in Ningbo and living in rented accomodation. 

He said Gui held a 40-minute phone conversation with his daughter on Thursday night. 

However, Bei told the Hong Kong Free Press website that his friend was only “half free”.
Angela Gui told the Hong Kong broadcaster RTHK there were “many things that need to be clarified” about her father’s situation and declined to comment further. 

“She said she had received a phone call, but did not confirm it was from her father,” RTHK reported.
A spokesperson for Sweden’s foreign ministry said: “We have received reports from the Chinese authorities that Gui Minhai has been released and we’re doing our best to obtain more information.”
Activists suspect that rather than completely freeing Gui, Chinese authorities have moved him from a detention centre into what they call China’s “non-release release” system. 

Under this Kafka-esque system, regime opponents are nominally freed but in fact continue to live under the watch and guard of security agents.
“Non-release release” has been the fate of a number of those targeted as part of Xi’s campaign against human rights lawyers, which has seen some of the country’s leading civil rights attorneys spirited into secret detention before “reappearing” in a different form of captivity.
Bei told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post Gui had informed relatives he wanted to travel to Germany: “But for now, he is not sure if the Chinese authorities will allow him to leave China.
“He will only enjoy true freedom if he is allowed to leave China. If he cannot leave China, he could end up just like Liu Xia,” Bei added, referring to the wife of the late Nobel laureate who has also been living under the watch of security agents since her husband’s death in July.

Speaking on Tuesday, the bookseller’s daughter said she was deeply concerned about his wellbeing: “He has allegedly been released but it looks like he is still in some sort of custody... the fact that nobody can contact him and nobody knows where he is, legally constitutes an enforced disappearance, again.”

Exactly what happened to Gui and his bookselling colleagues and why they were targeted remains a mystery. 

However, in June last year, one of the other abducted men, Lam Wing-kee, claimed he had been kidnapped by Chinese special forces as part of a coordinated effort to silence criticism of China’s leadership.
Patrick Poon, a Hong Kong-based activist for Amnesty International who is following the case, said: “Definitely he is still under surveillance otherwise the whole thing wouldn’t be so mysterious.”
“We still need to see whether the authorities will allow him to go [to Germany] and it seems to me that he will still be under surveillance for some time before he is allowed to go.”
Poon said it was also unclear whether Chinese authorities had placed conditions on Gui’s release such as “not disclosing what happened to him during his time in detention [or] requiring him not to talk about his case when he leaves China”.