Hong Kong booksellers reported missing

Gui Minhai, a Swedish national and co-owner of the Mighty Current failed to return from a holiday in Thailand in October, while three other associates disappeared when they were visiting southern China, reports said.

Mr Lee Bo, 65, a major shareholder of Causeway Bay Books, vanished on Wednesday after he went to fetch books from his warehouse, Mr Lee’s wife told Hong Kong media.

Hong Kong pro-democracy legislator Sunday said that they will press the government for answers after a fifth employee of a publisher specialising in books critical of mainland China’s leadership went missing.

An editorial (link in Chinese) published today (Jan. 4) by the nationalistic state-run tabloid Global Times warned the Hong Kong public should not use the incident to question “one country, two systems” but should “rethink” the bookstore’s spread of political rumors and “social disorder” to the mainland.

“The Hong Kong government is very concerned about the case”, Mr Leung said at a press conference in Hong Kong, citing the One Country, Two Systems policy that defines the city’s autonomy from China.

However, there is “no indication” as of yet that Chinese authorities had any role to play in the disappearance of Lee or his colleagues, Leung said Monday.

Its books are banned in China, but are available in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s second highest-ranking official, chief secretary Carrie Lam, expressed concern about the case at the weekend.

Protest co-organiser Avery Ng says the fact the Chinese government would neither confirm nor deny its involvement in the disappearances has created widespread fear.

Bei Ling, a Chinese dissident who knows Lee Po’s wife, said he believed the publishing company had infuriated Beijing by publishing two recent books about Xi Jinping and Bo Xilai, the disgraced Communist party leader whose wife was jailed for the 2011 murder of British businessman Neil Heywood.

However, Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing chief executive, CY Leung, was forced to speak out against Lee Po’s apparent abduction on Monday amid growing anger from pro-democracy groups.

The Basic Law guarantees wide-ranging personal freedoms, including freedom of speech, and independent law enforcement overseen by an independent judiciary.

The most scary thing is, is that there’s no news and no proof on what happened to those five publishers, and even the central government and the Hong Kong government refused to respond.

“Chinese authorities should investigate these reported disappearances and immediately clarify the situation”.

Lee was reported missing to police Friday.

Acting Secretary for Security: The Hong Kong Police have so far received reports relating to the missing of four Hong Kong residents.

Hong Kong is semi-autonomous after being handed back to China by Britain in 1997 and enjoys freedoms unseen on the mainland.

“He later called me again and asked me not to make a scene”.

He later called to say “everything was alright” from a number that did not belong to him and originated from the neighbouring mainland Chinese city of Shenzhen, Choi had said.