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           Returned Hong Kong Booksellers Not Cooperating with Police

   by Hai Yan

   Two of the five people missing from Hong Kong's Causeway Bay Books
   store returned to the city over the past several days, but police said
   they were refusing to cooperate with investigators.

   All five booksellers, including owner Gui Minghai, were thought to have
   been abducted and taken to Beijing for selling literature banned in
   mainland China.

   Cheung Chi-ping asked Hong Kong police to cancel his missing-person
   case two days after his fellow bookseller, Lui Por, returned to Hong
   Kong and made the same request.

   Both men requested no further help from the government or police and
   "refused to disclose other details," police said.

   A third bookseller, Lam Wing-kee, is expected to return to Hong Kong
   shortly. In February, all three appeared on pro-Beijing TV to confess
   their wrongdoings, explaining that they had been detained for illegal
   book trading in mainland China.

   Pro-Beijing Phoenix TV reported that Gui was found selling a large
   number of political books banned in mainland China through online
   channels, "conducting illegal business for illegal benefits."

   The report said Gui admitted his guilt and that the three others
   confessed to "acting with Gui's orders."

   The fifth bookseller, Lee Bo, who appeared in a separate Phoenix TV
   interview February 29, said that he voluntarily went to the mainland to
   assist in a Chinese investigation that required him to furnish evidence
   against people whom he declined to name.

   Lee, who is a dual British-Hong Kong citizen, also said he planned to
   renounce his British citizenship.

   ''Links to publisher

   Lee went missing December 30 last year, months after his publishing
   associates disappeared. The men were all associated with publisher
   Mighty Current, which specializes in books on political scandals
   involving China's communist leaders and other sensitive topics that are
   banned in mainland China.

   The disappearances also drew concern that China was eroding the "one
   country, two systems" principle under which Hong Kong has been governed
   with civil liberties such as freedom of the press.

   "In fact, this case is a political event, concerning a publisher and a
   writer engaged in political writing and political books publishing,"
   said Bei Ling, a poet and longtime friend of Gui. "I would call it the
   most serious political event since 1997, when Hong Kong returned to
   Chinese rule.

   "If someone violates the law in Hong Kong, they should be sanctioned by
   the law in Hong Kong," he added. "How can they be abducted from Hong
   Kong and Thailand to mainland China for law enforcement?" Gui was
   believed by diplomats familiar with the case to have been abducted or
   coerced from Thailand.

   Bei said that all five involved in the case spoke of their "crimes"
   under tight control of the Chinese police, which indicates, he said,
   that Chinese authorities are determined to reveal only their version of
   events, regardless of fact.

   This report was produced in collaboration with VOA's Mandarin service.
     __________________________________________________________________

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   -cooperate-police/3226408.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/returned-hong-kong-booksellers-refuse-cooperate-police/3226408.html