Dozens protest against disappearance of five Hong Kong publishers

Hong Kong activists on Sunday (January 3) protested outside Beijing’s representative office in the Chinese-ruled city over the disappearance of five booksellers who specialise in publications critical of the Communist Party government.

Some 60 protesters marched with photos of the missing publishers and shouted “publishing is not a crime, where is Mr. Lee Bo?”

65-year-old Lee Bo, also known as Paul Lee, is a major shareholder of Causeway Bay Books and was the most recent publisher to disappear.

He vanished on Wednesday (December 30) after he went to fetch books from his warehouse, Lee’s wife told local media.

She said her husband had called her from a mainland Chinese number to tell her he was safe but would not reveal his location, local media reported. She added Lee spoke to her in Mandarin even though the pair usually communicated in Cantonese.

Police confirmed on Friday (January 1) that a missing persons report has been filed on the case.

Lee’s disappearance is the fifth such case related to the bookstore, with four other employees having vanished in mysterious circumstances in the past two months.

The disappearances have fuelled lingering concerns that China is using shadowy and illegal tactics in the former British colony, whose constitution guarantees rule of law and freedom of expression.

Protest co-organizer and vice chairman of the political party League of Social Democrats, Avery Ng, said the fact that Beijing would not confirm or deny its involvement in the disappearances created fear in the public.

“The most scary thing is, 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, well previously, on the whereabouts these citizens are. Now if they did not make any arrest, then they just come out and say it. But the fact is, the Hong Kong police and the Chinese police did not respond to those questions. That creates the fear among the Hong Kong citizens,” Ng said.

He added the incident could have an impact on Hong Kong’s freedom of press and freedom of expression.

“To the freedom of press and expression, it is the hidden hand of suppression that’s the scariest part,” Ng said.

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

While the books are banned in mainland China, they are popular with Chinese tourists in Hong Kong.

Protesters also demanded the immediate release of another Hong Kong book publisher who sold books banned in mainland China. Yiu Man-tin was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2014 after he was found guilty of “smuggling industrial paint”.

Many in Hong Kong fear Beijing is eroding the wide-ranging personal freedoms and independent law enforcement enshrined in the one country, two systems formula under which they have been governed since British rule ended in 1997.

The Liaison Office and Hong Kong Immigration Department could not be reached for comment. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, an agency of China’s State Council, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.