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Hong Kong Bookseller Says He Was Detained by China Defying China, Vanished Bookseller Describes Custody
(about 5 hours later)
HONG KONG — One of the five Hong Kong booksellers whose disappearance last year drew international attention told a packed news conference on Thursday that he spent months in Chinese custody. HONG KONG — Blindfolded and handcuffed, the bookseller was abducted from Hong Kong’s border with mainland China and taken to a cell, where he would spend five months in solitary confinement, watched 24 hours a day by a battery of Chinese guards.
The bookseller, Lam Wing-kee, described his abduction at the border with mainland China in October, his months in solitary custody and his eventual forced confession. Even the simple act of brushing his teeth was monitored by minders, who tied a string to his toothbrush for fear he might try to use it to harm himself. They wanted him to identify anonymous authors and turn over data on customers.
“I couldn’t hire a lawyer,” Mr. Lam said. “I couldn’t call my family. I could only look up to the sky, all alone.” “I couldn’t call my family,” the man, Lam Wing-kee, said on Thursday. “I could only look up to the sky, all alone.”
Mr. Lam is the only one of the booksellers to speak out about his disappearance. When some of the others returned to Hong Kong several months ago, they refused to discuss any details; one said he had gone to the mainland voluntarily. Months after he and four other booksellers disappeared from Hong Kong and Thailand, prompting international concern over what critics called a brazen act of extralegal abduction, Mr. Lam stood before a bank of television cameras in Hong Kong and revealed the harrowing details of his time in detention.
The Hong Kong booksellers offered rumor-filled and salacious books focused on the sex lives and power games of China’s top leaders, including the president, Xi Jinping. The books are banned in mainland China, where the message about politics and politicians is tightly controlled. “It can happen to you, too,” said Mr. Lam, 61, who was the manager of Causeway Bay Books, a store that sold juicy potboilers about the mainland’s Communist Party leadership. “I want to tell the whole world: Hong Kongers will not bow down to brute force.”
But publishers in Hong Kong, which has a separate legal system from mainland China, have turned the illicit titles into a lucrative business. Although Mr. Lam’s assertions could not be immediately confirmed, his revelations contradicted Beijing’s claims that the booksellers had voluntarily entered the mainland to cooperate with an investigation by the Chinese authorities.
The booksellers’ disappearance shocked people in Hong Kong and reverberated internationally. Many saw the development as an expansion of China’s authoritarian legal system beyond its borders, in clear violation of the “one country, two systems” framework that allows Hong Kong to maintain a high degree of autonomy from Beijing. One of the men, Gui Minhai, vanished from his seaside apartment in Pattaya, Thailand, in October. Another, Lee Bo, a British citizen, disappeared from the streets of Hong Kong in December.
Thousands of people in this city took up their cause, marching to demand their release. Diplomats from Britain, the European Union, the United States and elsewhere also registered concern. Mr. Lam’s account highlights the lengths to which the government of President Xi Jinping is willing to go to silence critics outside mainland China — at the risk of damaging its standing on the international stage.
Mr. Lam, who returned to the city this week, spoke of being stopped by Chinese security personnel as he passed from Hong Kong to Shenzhen on Oct. 24. He said he was blindfolded, put on a train and sent hundreds of miles north to the city of Ningbo, where he was kept in a room alone for five months. To back up the government’s claims that the booksellers had voluntarily entered China, state-run television broadcast confessions by the five men; Mr. Gui, for example, tearfully said he had returned to China to face justice for his role in a fatal 2003 hit-and-run car accident in the Chinese coastal city of Ningbo.
He described being locked up in a dingy room in Ningbo under 24-hour surveillance. He was given a script and directed to make a confession that incriminated Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong publisher, by saying that he was behind the unlawful sale of books that had caused harm to society. Mr. Lam said his own words — that he had broken mainland law by publishing salacious books about Chinese leaders — had been crafted by the authorities but that he had no choice but to cooperate.
“The room had padded furniture,” Mr. Lam said. “It’s obvious that it was for fear that you would commit suicide. They wanted to lock you up until you go mad.” “It was a show, and I accepted it,” he said of his confession. “I had to follow the script. If I did not follow it strictly, they would ask for a retake.”
He added: “A nylon string was attached to one end of the toothbrush, and an officer held the other end of the string while you brushed, because they fear you’ll kill yourself. It was mental torture.” His revelations open a rare window into the workings of China’s security apparatus, which frequently uses forced confessions by lawyers, rights advocates and even celebrities to sway public opinion and justify the detentions of those who have dared to defy the party.
The other four booksellers who disappeared included two colleagues from Mr. Lam’s bookstore, Causeway Bay Books, and its sister publishing company, Mighty Current. Both were detained last October while in mainland China. Mr. Lam’s claims are also likely to confirm the worst fears of Hong Kong residents, who say that Beijing has been intensifying efforts to erode the prodigious liberties enjoyed by the former British colony since it was returned to China in 1997.
Mr. Gui, the principal publisher of Mighty Current, was taken from his seaside apartment in Thailand in October. A second publisher, Lee Bo, disappeared off the streets of Hong Kong in late December.
Mr. Gui holds Swedish citizenship, while Mr. Lee has a British passport and Mr. Lam is a native of Hong Kong.
On Thursday, Mr. Lam told reporters that Mr. Lee had told him in private that he, too, was taken to China against his will. Mr. Lam said Mr. Lee was able to get him the equivalent of about $15,000, for living expenses and as compensation for the loss of his job after the bookstore was closed.
Mr. Lee did not respond to a request for comment on Mr. Lam’s remarks.
In January, Mr. Gui made a tearful televised confession about his involvement in a fatal 2003 hit-and-run car accident in Ningbo. Mr. Gui is the only one of the five booksellers still in mainland detention. As the main force behind the publishing company and bookstore, he was responsible for a prodigious number of books, including several that made detailed allegations about Mr. Xi’s sex life.
Amnesty International said that Mr. Lam’s comments helped shed light on China’s hard-line legal system.
“Lam Wing-kee has blown apart the Chinese authorities’ story,” Mabel Au, Amnesty International’s director in Hong Kong, said in a statement. “He has exposed what many have suspected all along: that this was a concerted operation by the Chinese authorities to go after the booksellers.”“Lam Wing-kee has blown apart the Chinese authorities’ story,” Mabel Au, Amnesty International’s director in Hong Kong, said in a statement. “He has exposed what many have suspected all along: that this was a concerted operation by the Chinese authorities to go after the booksellers.”
When Mr. Lam was released this week, it was from more comfortable quarters in neighboring Guangdong Province. He was moved there after Ningbo, he said, and was released on the condition that he retrieve a computer hard drive that had records of the bookstore’s customers. The booksellers were key players in an industry that produces racy, rumor-filled books focused on the sex lives and power games of China’s top leaders. Although such books are banned on the mainland, where the message about politics and politicians is tightly controlled, they are eagerly sought by visitors to Hong Kong, who return home to China with the books stowed in their luggage.
Mr. Lam said now that he was out of the hands of the Chinese police he would not comply. In the months since Mr. Lam and his colleagues disappeared, the industry has fallen on hard times. Causeway Bay Books has closed, and many Hong Kong bookstores have pulled titles about Chinese politics from their shelves.
“I don’t plan on setting foot in mainland China ever again,” Mr. Lam said. “If we don’t speak up, Hong Kong will not be saved.” The disappearances shocked people in Hong Kong and reverberated internationally. Many saw the episode as an expansion of China’s authoritarian legal system beyond its borders, in clear violation of the “one country, two systems” framework that allows Hong Kong to maintain a high degree of autonomy from Beijing.
Thousands of people took to the streets of Hong Kong to demand the booksellers’ release. Diplomats from Britain, the European Union and the United States also registered concern.
Three of the men, including Mr. Lee, have since been allowed to visit Hong Kong but later returned to the mainland. During their visits, they refused to publicly discuss the details of their disappearances. Mr. Gui, who holds a Swedish passport, is the only one still in custody.
Mr. Lam’s ordeal began on Oct. 24, during what he said was a routine trip to see his girlfriend on the mainland. As he crossed the border at the Chinese city of Shenzhen, he said he was seized by security personnel. Blindfolded and with his hands bound, he was put on a train that traveled hundreds of miles north to Ningbo.
The next few months, he said, were spent in a dingy cell, where he signed away his right to a lawyer and the right to contact his family. He said he was questioned 20 to 30 times about his role in Hong Kong’s publishing industry.
At one point, he said he was forced to sign a confession that incriminated Mr. Gui, saying his colleague had orchestrated the unlawful sale of books that harmed Chinese society.
He said the cell’s furniture was covered in padded fabric, an apparent attempt to prevent him from committing suicide. After about five months, he was moved to an apartment.
“They wanted to lock you up until you go mad,” he said.
On Thursday, Mr. Lam told reporters that Mr. Lee had told him privately that he, too, was taken to China against his will. Mr. Lam said Mr. Lee was able to get him the equivalent of about $15,000, for living expenses and as compensation for the loss of his job after the bookstore closed.
Mr. Lee did not respond to a request for comment.
The authorities apparently thought that Mr. Lam would continue to cooperate. He said they let him travel to Hong Kong on Tuesday after he promised to return to the mainland with a hard-drive full of information on customers.
Instead, Mr. Lam decided to meet with the news media. “I dare not go back,” he said. “I don’t plan on setting foot in mainland China ever again.”