Hong Kong shocked as fifth bookseller mysteriously ‘vanishes’

Lee’s disappearance has triggered speculation that Chinese security agents entered Hong Kong to abduct and spirit him to the mainland. There was no record of Lee leaving the city, the SCMP reported, citing an unidentified police source.

Mr Ho said it was “outrageous” for Mr Lee to have disappeared in the city. She suspected that Shenzhen officers had taken her husband from Hong Kong, sparking a storm of street protests.

Messages of support are seen hanging on the door of a closed bookshop selling books about China’s politics in Hong Kong on January 4, 2016.

This incident needs clarification from the authorities because, if true, it blights everything so far stated about the hands-off approach Beijing projects in relation to Hong Kong under the One Country Two Systems declaration that is in force until Hong Kong reverts in the full sense to China mainland rule.

Mighty Current and it’s bookstore Causeway Bay Bookstore are known for creating propaganda fueled titles regarding Chinese government scandals and other sensitive issues involving the mainland’s government.

A few dozen protesters yesterday marched to Beijing’s Liaison Office to demand information about Lee, Mighty Current’s chief editor and, according to the South China Morning Post, one of the company’s major shareholders.

If confirmed, the apparent abduction of a British passport holder by Chinese security officials would complicate the two-day trip to China this week of the British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond. And even the central government and the Hong Kong government refused to respond – well, previously – on the whereabouts of these citizens are.

Three other employees have also apparently disappeared.

“If mainland law enforcement personnel enforce the law in Hong Kong, it is unacceptable because it is against the Basic Law (the city’s constitution)”.

Hong Kong Acting Secretary for Security John Lee told reporters that police were “actively” investigating the case. But Chan said chief executive Leung should be taking the matter up at the highest level in Beijing. “So the mainland police can publicly arrest people in Hong Kong?”.

Lee Cheuk-yan, a pro-democracy lawmaker, said that while Hong Kong officials had sought information from Chinese law enforcement agencies over the case, they had yet to respond, showing a clear “failing” in the reporting and communication mechanism between both sides.

First, Lee is indeed “assisting an investigation” in the Chinese mainland. Some have linked the absences to a planned book on the past “love affairs” of China’s President Xi Jinping.

The Causeway Bay Bookstore sells paperbacks highly critical of the Chinese leadership in Beijing and often containing details of the private lives of senior leaders and their families.

Lam said the Chinese authorities had made an unpublicized decision in early 2015 to attempt to “eradicate or silence” those four or five publishing houses.

Looking to raise global attention about the current situation in Hong Kong, Agnes Chow Ting, prominent member of the Hong Kong student activist group Scholarism, is speaking out on the curious case of the missing local bookseller. Do you think there’s evidence to suggest they’ve been taken across the border to Mainland China, and who do you think could be behind the possible kidnapping?