Hong Kong bookseller missing report withdrawn as letter appears

She said he told her then that he was “assisting an investigation” and alluded to the earlier disappearances, but was not more specific.

Ho, a customer at the publishing firm’s bookshop in Causeway Bay, said he had heard from other store regulars that the company was about to launch a book about Xi’s former girlfriend. Choi received a call from Lee at 10pm “to tell me everything all right” but not from a number she recognised and originating from a Chinese city, Shenzen, in Guangdong Province. Leung stressed that mainland officers do not have law enforcement powers in Hong Kong.

The city’s police said that there was no record of Lee leaving Hong Kong, according to a report in the city’s largest-circulation English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post.

Hong Kong’s constitution grants it independent law enforcement, but the shadowy disappearances have stoked concern that mainland authorities are undermining the city’s special status.

The case has apparently attracted the attention of hacker group Anonymous, which allegedly threatened to attack official Chinese websites in retaliation for the disappearance of Lee.

Leung said freedoms of press, publication and expression were protected under Hong Kong law.

Lee’s wife told Hong Kong’s Cable TV that her husband had called her from neighboring Shenzhen the night he disappeared, speaking Mandarin rather than the couple’s native tongue, Cantonese.

Other officials said local police were pursuing Lee’s disappearance as a “missing persons” case and had contacted authorities on the mainland.

Scholarism’s Agnes Chow spoke out against China in a viral video this weekend, after a fifth bookseller associated with controversial publisher Mighty Current, 65-year-old Lee Bo, was reported missing.

Hong Kong’s chief secretary, Carrie Lam, issued a statement on Saturday (2nd January) that she was concerned about reports that the bookseller had gone missing, while Hong Kong acting secretary for security John Lee said police were “actively” investigating the case.

Hong Kong’s leader Leung Chun-ying said Monday it would be “unacceptable” if mainland law enforcers were operating in Hong Kong. More openness would be so welcome by pro-Beijing and Pro-Hong Kong people.

Last Wednesday, Paul Lee, an editor at controversial Hong Kong publishing house Mighty Current, vanished.

The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, which is under the Chinese State Council, could not be reached yesterday for comment.

Lee was a shareholder in Causeway Bay Books, whose tabloid paperbacks are highly critical of the Chinese leadership, Reuters reported.

One of them, publishing house owner Gui Minhai, was last seen in Thailand. “If outside bodies enforce the law in Hong Kong, it’s a violation”.

Protests were held outside Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong Sunday and Monday. “Whereas Hong Kong will enhance its competitive edge as a financing center after the mainland adopts a registration-based approval system since March 1, as the valuation gap between Hong Kong and mainland markets will narrow”.

The invisible hand of Beijing is not only squeezing freedom of the press and publishers, it is also gripping power on university campuses.