Causeway Bay Books disappearances

The Causeway Bay Books disappearances are a series of international disappearances concerning five staff members of Causeway Bay Books, a former bookstore located in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Between October and December 2015, five staff of Causeway Bay Books went missing. At least two of them disappeared in mainland China, one in Thailand. One member was last seen in Hong Kong, and eventually revealed to be in Shenzhen, across the Chinese border, without the travel documents necessary to have crossed the border through legal channels.

It was widely believed that the booksellers were detained in mainland China, and in February 2016 Guangdong provincial authorities confirmed that all five had been taken into custody in relation to an old traffic case involving Gui Minhai. While response to the October disappearances had been muted, perhaps in recognition that unexplained disappearances and lengthy extrajudicial detentions are known to occur in mainland China, the unprecedented disappearance of a person in Hong Kong, and the bizarre events surrounding it, shocked the city and crystallised international concern over the possible abduction of Hong Kong citizens by Chinese public security bureau officials and their likely rendition, and the violation of several articles of the Basic Law. In his report to the British government and parliament in early January 2016, foreign secretary Philip Hammond said the incident was "a serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong and undermines the principle of one country, two systems".

Following the international focus on the disappearances, there were virtual reappearances by two of the missing men, Lee Bo, in the form of letters and photographs, and Gui Minhai, in a confessional video broadcast on national television, in which they insisted that their return to mainland China was voluntary but which failed to account for their movement across national borders. These efforts were widely derided by commentators as a farce and a charade, as they failed to satisfy concerns over the breach of "one country, two systems" and its practical and constitutional implications.

On 16 June 2016, shortly after he returned to Hong Kong, Lam Wing-kee gave a long press conference in the presence of legislator Albert Ho in which he detailed the circumstances surrounding his eight-month detention, and describing how his confession and those of his associates had been scripted and stage-managed. Lam indicated the involvement of the Central Investigation Team, which is under direct control of the highest level of the Beijing leadership. His revelations stunned Hong Kong and made headlines worldwide, prompting a flurry of counter-accusations and denials from mainland authorities and supporters.

Background

Causeway Bay Books (銅鑼灣書店), located in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, was founded in 1994 by Lam Wing-kee. It was one of about 110 independent Hong Kong bookshops that rent out space in upstairs locations to avoid high rents at street level. The bookstore sold a number of political books that are considered sensitive and banned in mainland China. Freedom of speech in Hong Kong is protected under Basic Law Article 27, and these independent publishers thrive as they cater predominantly to people interested in the machinations of mainland politics. The bookstore became popular amongst mainland Chinese tourists for this reason. In 2014, the bookstore was sold to Mighty Current Media Company Limited (巨流傳媒有限公司), a publishing house. During the time of the disappearances, the company had three shareholders: Gui Minhai, Sophie Choi and Lui Bo. According to industry sources, Mighty Current is a prolific publisher with a number of publishing subsidiaries, and this group may be responsible for 30 to 60 percent of the output of salacious books about Chinese political figures that are widely available at newsstands and in book stores, including one at Hong Kong International Airport.

Around the time of the disappearances, Gui Minhai was rumoured to have been working on a book regarding current CPC general secretary Xi Jinping's personal love history, tentatively named ''Xi and His Six Women'' (習近平和他的六個女人). The project was suggested to be linked to the disappearances. The publishing house had also already gone to press with a book entitled ''2017: Upheaval in China'', but it was withdrawn by the author before publication.

In late 2013, Yiu Man-tin (姚文田), founder and chief editor of Morning Bell Press (晨鐘書局) and a Hong Kong resident, was arrested in Shenzhen after he had been tricked there. He was known to have been preparing to publish a book by a Chinese writer residing in the US about Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping, entitled ''Godfather of China, Xi Jinping'' (中國教父習近平). Yiu was arrested by police in Shenzhen on charges of falsely labelling and smuggling industrial chemicals worth $220,000 in 2010 and was sentenced to prison for 10 years allegedly for smuggling, even though the real reason for the trumped up charges, in the eyes of many, was China's increasing restrictions on political expression under Xi. Two Hong Kong magazine publishers, Wong Kin-man and Wo Chung-hau, were arrested and tried in November 2015 for running an illegal business in China after sending copies of a political magazine to people on the mainland.

Chinese PEN Center director Bei Ling alerted ''Apple Daily'' to Lee Bo's disappearance, and the journal reported on 1 January 2016 that Lee had become the fifth member of Causeway Bay Books to disappear. His wife was unwilling to speak to the press at the time, but filed a missing person's report with the Hong Kong police the following day.

Guangdong Action Plan

According to ''The Sunday Times'', the mainland authorities had issued instructions on 25 April 2015 to eradicate illegal publications and those containing sexual content. ''The Sunday Times'' published what was described to be an alleged internal Communist Party document entitled "Guangdong Action Plan", a summary of which had been circulating in journalistic and political circles the previous week, and the full document gives apparent authorisation for excursions by Guangdong enforcers targeting authors, publishers and booksellers. In it, 14 publishing houses and 21 publications in Hong Kong were named.

Disappearances

Lui Bo (呂波, age ) is the manager and one of the three shareholders of Mighty Current. His last known location was the bookstore. On 14 October 2015, he logged in for the last time onto the bookstore computer. Unconfirmed sources state that he was taken away from his wife's home in Shenzhen.

Gui Minhai (桂民海, age ) is a Swedish national and one of the three shareholders of Mighty Current. He was taken away from his home in Pattaya, Thailand by an unknown man on 17 October 2015. Gui had written some 200 books during his ten years as author/publisher. He kept his movements to himself and his communications routed, and his work projects would also be shrouded in secrecy. Gui has not set foot inside the PRC for a long period – he never attended to his father when he was ill, and did not return upon his death. It is known that his home in Thailand was later searched by four Chinese men, who attempted to seize Gui's computer. A manager from the estate where Gui lived, in an effort to contact Gui, dialled the number that last called her regarding Gui, to be told by a taxi driver that the four men, who had left the telephone in the taxi, wanted to go to a border town in Cambodia. He was last heard from on 6 November when he called his wife to tell her that he was safe but was unwilling to reveal his whereabouts. Gui's family contacted the Swedish embassy, and the Swedish police filed a report through Interpol, but ''the Guardian'', noting that the military junta was becoming increasingly accommodating to Chinese demands, observed that the Thais had done little to advance the case. The Thai authorities have no record of him leaving the country. Gui was a board member of Independent Chinese PEN Centre in 2014.

Lam Wing-kee (林榮基, age ), the founder of Causeway Bay Books, went missing since 24 October 2015. He habitually spent long hours at the bookshop and occasionally slept there. His wife filed a missing persons report with the police on 5 November and his family received a telephone call from him several hours later; he refused to reveal his whereabouts. When filing the police report, they were referred to the Immigration Department, who said it was against privacy policy to reveal a person's records of entry and exit of Hong Kong without the subject's permission. However, legislator James To said this was a reasonable request that was exempt from privacy policy. Police followed up on his case once, asking whether they had heard from him. His family allege that upon learning that he had contacted his family, the officer who called them informed that the case would be closed as resolved.

Cheung Chi-ping (張志平, age ), a manager of Mighty Current, was taken away from his wife's home in Fenggang, Dongguan by at least a dozen men in plainclothes.

Lee Bo (aka Paul Lee, 李波, age ), was a British citizen and the husband of Sophie Choi, who is in turn one of the three shareholders of Mighty Current. Lee regularly helped out in the bookstore. Lee Bo's wife has written a column for 20 years under the pen name of Syu Fei at ''Ta Kung Pao'' – owned by the Liaison Office; Lee worked at Joint Publishing until he started work at the bookstore. Since the disappearances of four of his colleagues, he had been doing anonymous interviews with BBC
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