Publisher Wang Jianmin, 62, and editor-in-chief Guo Zhongxiao, 40, published two political affairs magazines in city
TONY CHEUNG IN SHENZHEN
UPDATED : Tuesday, 26 July, 2016, 2:09pm
Wang Jianmin was jailed five years and three months. Photo: SCMP Pictures
A pair of Hong Kong journalists behind two political affairs magazines were jailed in Shenzhen for running an illegal business, the same charge that landed five booksellers from Causeway Bay Books in trouble last year.
The duo’s imprisonment came a month after one of the five Hong Kong booksellers, Lam Wing-kee, made explosive revelations after returning from mainland custody, claiming he had been kidnapped at the border and put through eight months of mental torture.
Publisher Wang Jianmin, 62, was jailed five years and three months, while editor-in-chief Guo Zhongxiao, 40, was jailed two years and three months. They had pleaded guilty in Shenzhen’s Nanshan District Court last year.
Guo’s lawyer Xia Qianhai said his client would be released next month, since the pair were arrested in May 2014.
Wang and Guo are Hong Kong ID card holders, but were living in Shenzhen when they were nabbed.
Prosecutors said that their company, National Affairs Limited, which was registered in Hong Kong, had earned HK$7 million through the publication of two magazines, New-Way Monthly and Multiple Face, with mainland readers accounting for 66,000 yuan (HK$80,600) in total revenue.
But the defence said the publications were printed in Hong Kong, and copies were sent to only eight people on the mainland, all friends of the publisher.
Multiple Face magazine, one of two magazines targeted by mainland authorities. Image: supplied
Wang’s wife, Xu Zhongyuan, who helped send copies of the magazines in the mail, as well as a freelance contributor, Liu Haitao, from Henan province, also pleaded guilty to operating an illegal business before the same court.
Xu was sentenced to a year in jail, suspended for two years. Liu was sentenced to two years in jail, suspended for three years.
Xu’s lawyer said on Tuesday that the four defendants said they “accepted the court’s verdict and would not appeal”.
Guo’s lawyer Xia said the prosecution originally recommended at least five years in jail for his client.
“It was reduced because the judge accepted that Guo was only an accomplice, not the mastermind,” he said.
Without further elaboration, Xia added that the prosecution’s accusation about Guo’s “illegal earning” was also rejected.
Under mainland Chinese law, if an illegal business operation involves less than 250,000 yuan, then the jail term will be below five years.
The law also states that if the quantity of banned books in question is 2,000 or more, then the sentence will be five years or below. For 5,000 or more books, the penalty is more than five years’ jail.
Mighty Current publishing house’s co-owner, Gui Minhai, one of the five Hong Kong booksellers who went missing last year, has been accused of running an illegal business in the mainland by ordering his associates to deliver about 4,000 books banned on the mainland across the border since October 2014.
Gui and all of his four associates, including Lam Wing-kee, have confessed to their role in the illegal business on state media. But Lam turned up in Hong Kong last month and said he was forced to make those confessions.
The case of the five booksellers sparked fears that the “one country, two systems” principle was under threat.
In October last year, Gui went mysteriously missing while in Thailand. In the same month, Lam, Lui Por and Cheung Chi-ping vanished while on the mainland. Lee Po disappeared from Hong Kong in December. Lee’s case in particular roused speculation that mainland agents were operating in the city.
Mighty Current and its Causeway Bay Books store specialised in publications critical of the Chinese Communist Party.
Tony Cheung is reporting from Shenzhen
Additional reporting by Phila Siu
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1994931/echo-missing-booksellers-case-shenzhen-court-jails-two-hong
