Angela Gui, 22, also confirms Post report that Swedish authorities were told Gui Minhai wished to give up Swedish citizenship
PHILA.SIU@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Wednesday, 25 May, 2016, 12:41pm
Angela Gui, daughter of detained published Gui Minhai, said her father had phoned her even when he was detained. Photo: SCMP Pictures
The daughter of detained publisher Gui Minhai took her fight for her father’s release to Washington on Tuesday, calling on the international community to confront Beijing and accusing Chinese agents of abducting the publisher on foreign soil.
Testifying at a US Congressional-Executive Commission on China hearing, Angela Gui also confirmed a Post report that the Chinese government had told the Swedish authorities of her father’s wish to give up his Swedish citizenship, raising suspicions about whether he was coerced into saying so.
“It has now been eight months since my father and his colleagues were taken into custody. I still haven’t been told where he is, how he is being treated, or what his legal status is – which is especially shocking in the light of the fact that my father holds Swedish, and only Swedish citizenship,” the 22-year-old said.
Daughter of missing HK bookseller gave testimony at US Congressional-Executive Commission on China
“In his so-called confession [on state television], my father said he travelled to China voluntarily. But if this is true, why is there no record of him having left Thailand? Only a state agency, acting coercively and against both international and China’s own law could achieve such a disappearance.”
From October last year, five associates from Mighty Current publishing house and its Causeway Bay Books store started to go missing. Gui vanished in October from Pattaya, Thailand. Lam Wing-kee, Cheung Chi-ping and Lui Por disappeared while on the mainland in the same month. Lee Po went missing in December from Hong Kong.
Their disappearances sparked fears that they were kidnapped by Chinese agents, as their companies specialised in books critical of the Chinese Communist Party.
All of them later surfaced on the mainland, saying in front of state media that they travelled there out of their own free will.
Gui, who was born on the mainland and later became a naturalised Swedish citizen, has been accused of ordering his associates to deliver about 4,000 banned books across the border since October 2014. He remains in detention.
“In November and January, he sent me two messages on Skype, telling me to keep quiet. As his daughter, I can tell that he said this under duress ... I didn’t hear or see anything about my father until the clearly staged and badly put together confession video was aired on Chinese state television in January,” Angela said.
Missing Hong Kong bookseller paraded on China’s state television
The final-year sociology student in the UK said the Chinese government had failed to explain why her father had been held without charges for months. She described her father’s detention as “unofficial and illegal”, pointing out that he had not been granted access to legal representation.
She also recalled what happened when Swedish officials were finally allowed by the Chinese government to meet her father in February.
“When they finally got to meet him, he told them that he didn’t need any help, that he considered himself Chinese. And then he got up to leave. That’s what I have been told,” she said.
Surprisingly, after the publisher was detained, he managed to call his daughter. The last call was made about a month ago.
“I have had phone calls from him, in which he told me I am not allowed to visit, but that he would be able to call me regularly, which hasn’t really happened,” she said.
She urged the US to “take every opportunity” to press China for information on her father’s status and for him to be freed immediately.
“Finally, the US, Sweden, and other countries concerned about these developments need to work to make sure the Chinese authorities are not allowed to carry out illegal operations on foreign soil,” she concluded.
US Congressional-Executive Commission on China chairman Christopher Smith was also concerned about the human rights situation in China. Photo: SCMP Pictures
Commission chairman Christopher Smith also said he was concerned about the human rights situation in China, pointing to not just the case of the missing booksellers, but also China’s crackdown on human rights lawyers and free press advocates.
“Human rights lawyers and free press advocates, and those fighting for labour rights… are the best hopes for China’s future. And they are the best hope for a more stable and prosperous US-China relation,” he said.
Separately, the foreign ministry of Sweden told thePost before the hearing that Sweden continues to “take a serious view of the matter and to seek clarification from the Chinese authorities of what happened and is happening to Mr Gui Minhai”.
Asked if Gui had expressed any wish to give up his Swedish citizenship, a ministry spokeswoman would say only: “According to our information, Mr Gui is a Swedish citizen.”
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1953716/dont-let-china-carry-out-illegal-operations-foreign-soil
