AFP
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Hong Kong on Saturday in protest at the detention of five booksellers from the city's Causeway Bay Books store, who are accused by Beijing of violating its laws by selling banned books to residents of mainland China.
Chanting "Say no to power! Hong Kong has limits!", "Protest political kidnappings!" and carrying banners and yellow umbrellas linked to the 2014 democracy movement, the protesters marched to Beijing's representative office in the city, led by returned bookseller Lam Wing-kei, who recently spoke out against his detention in China.
Police presence was strongly visible outside the Central Liaison Office, with crowd barriers in place and officers taking photos of the scene with their cell phones, a live video stream from the Apple Daily newspaper showed.
Labour Party lawmaker Cyd Ho told protesters that they are the "conscience of the Hong Kong people."
"Lam Wing-kee decided to speak out after a march of 6,000 Hong Kong people [supporting him]," she said. "Now, we march again. There is still hope for Hong Kong."
Marchers filed past the Liaison Office in a narrow space that left no room for rallies, before dispersing, local media reported.
Organizers said some 6,000 people marched on Saturday after gathering in a narrow street outside the now-shuttered Causeway Bay Books store, where Lam Wing-kei addressed the crowd following a press conference on Friday where he broke silence over the five men's treatment by Chinese police.
"This bookstore is located in Hong Kong, a place where the freedom of speech and of publishing is protected," said Lam, who on Friday defied the Chinese police to speak openly about his detention, saying his colleague Lee Bo had been "abducted," while he was blindfolded at a border checkpoint and spirited away for months of interrogation by a Beijing-directed "taskforce."
"But the Chinese government is using force to destroy it, because it wants to gradually restrict the freedoms enjoyed by the people of Hong Kong," Lam told the crowd.
Some protesters wore T-shirts emblazoned with prints of the "Goddess of Democracy" statue from the 1989 student-led Tiananmen Square democracy protests, with slogans calling on Beijing to overturn the official verdict of "counterrevolutionary rebellion" on that movement.
Lam, who went missing last October around the same time as four of his colleagues at Causeway Bay Books, is the fourth bookseller to return to the former British colony, but the first to depart from Beijing's official line on the booksellers' fate.
Store manager and British passport-holder Lee Bo, 65, went missing from his workplace in Hong Kong on Dec. 30, while general manager Lui Bo (also spelled Lui Por), and colleagues Cheung Chi-ping are believed to have been detained during trips to China from their usual base in Hong Kong.
Publisher and Swedish nation Gui Minhai left his Thai holiday home under opaque circumstances before appearing on state television CCTV "confessing" to involvement in a drunk-driving death 10 years earlier, a claim that his family have dismissed as highly dubious.
Lee Bo, who went missing from his workplace in Hong Kong on Dec. 30, returned to mainland China after spending less than 24 hours in Hong Kong, although he has since returned to his home. The U.K. government has said he was "involuntarily removed" from the city.
Lam was unusual in that he was the first to depart from the script given him by Chinese police, telling reporters on Friday that Lee Bo was abducted and that his own televised "confession" had been scripted and directed by a "special taskforce" acting under orders from the highest echelons of the ruling Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.
Clarification from Beijing
Lam also said Chinese police had ordered him to bring back a hard drive from the bookstore containing details of all of its customers, following months of interrogation over exactly who was buying books in Hong Kong that are banned in China.
He said he had changed his mind and stayed in Hong Kong because of previous protests in the city in support of the booksellers.
Lee Bo on Saturday denied that he had been kidnapped, but according to Lam, he has more to lose by defying Beijing.
"Lee Po may now be back in Hong Kong, but he is being controlled [by Chinese police] because he has family members back in mainland China," he told reporters on Saturday. "I know a lot of what he has said has been against his will."
China's foreign ministry on Friday said Lam had broken Chinese law.
"Lam Wing-kei is a Chinese citizen, and he has violated China’s laws on the mainland," spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news briefing, adding: "Relevant authorities in China are authorized to handle the case in accordance with the law."
But Hong Kong's lawmakers, both pan-democratic and pro-establishment, say Beijing has yet to explain how a bookseller operating in Hong Kong could have violated Chinese law, as the sale of books isn't illegal in the former British colony.
Michael Tien, who represents Hong Kong in China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing, said he will seek clarification from parliamentary officials.
"When you mail banned literature into China from other parts of the world, when you enter China someday, are [you] liable to be arrested?" he told reporters on Friday.
And pro-Beijing Liberal Party leader James Tien said the public wants to know why the administration of chief executive Leung Chun-ying isn't acting in support of the booksellers.
"Then the question will be posed: why aren’t we doing anything? Are we afraid of Beijing? I’m talking about the Hong Kong government," Tien told government broadcaster RTHK.
Meanwhile, China's powerful propaganda department has ordered its tightly controlled media to delete any news related to the booksellers, according to a leaked report posted and translated by the U.S.-based China Digital Times website.
Even an editorial in the Global Times newspaper, a nationalistic tabloid which has close ties to the Communist Party, was considered off-limits, in spite of reiterating Beijing's view of the booksellers' status.
"All websites find and delete Global Times' 'Causeway Bay Bookstore Manager’s "Confession Retraction" is Without Real Substance,' and do not repost related reports," the directive, dated June 17, said.
Hong Kong was promised a "high degree of autonomy" under the terms of its 1997 return to Chinese rule, within the "one country, two systems" framework agreed between British and Chinese officials and enshrined in its mini-constitution, the Basic Law.
However, China's cabinet, the State Council, has said such autonomy was still subject to the will of Beijing, while the city's own government has warned of "limits" to free speech.
Reported by RFA's Cantonese and Mandarin Services. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
This is like some thriller movies.
Never ever trust the Communist Party. They lie, steal and cheat to sate their power and control.
Jun 19, 2016 11:02 AM
Good for Mr. Lam to have spoken out publicly against his abduction by mainland Communist Chinese Party regime authorities and the forced nature of his CCTV televised confession. He indeed had broken no law in Hong Kong, assuming that Beijing is still respecting the Hong Kong Basic Law and the one country, two systems promises.
Jun 18, 2016 08:55 PM
