Detained Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai ‘alive and well’, Chinese ambassador to Sweden says
- Gui Congyou tells Swedish newspaper that country must face the consequences of ‘meddling’ in China’s affairs
- Last month Swedish culture minister Amanda Lind defied warnings from Beijing to present human rights prize awarded to Causeway Bay bookseller
China’s ambassador to Sweden has said the detained Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai is “alive and well” as the fallout from his case continued to affect relations between the two sides.
Ambassador Gui Congyou was interviewed by the Swedish financial newspaper Dagens industri and, according to a transcript released by the embassy on Thursday, he warned that Sweden must face the consequences of “meddling in [China’s] internal affairs”.
Tensions between the two countries heightened after a Swedish free speech organisation awarded a human rights award to the bookseller, a Chinese-born Swedish citizen, in November.
Sweden’s culture minister Amanda Lind defied a Chinese threat of “countermeasures” by presenting the prize.
China cancels trade visit to Sweden over bookseller’s free speech prize
The ambassador told the interviewer that China had cancelled a meeting of the China-Sweden Joint Committee on Economic, Industrial and Technical Cooperation earlier this month as a result. He also suggested that another cancelled visit by a business delegation was linked to the case.
When asked about the bookseller’s well-being, he replied: “You are really worrying yourself over nothing. [Gui] is not only alive, but also living quite well.”
He said that Beijing had allowed a Swedish doctor to assess the bookseller in August last year, adding: “You should ask that doctor how he is doing.”
Gui Minhai was one of five booksellers from Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong – an outlet known for selling gossipy titles about Chinese Communist Party officials – who disappeared in 2015.
Gui went missing from Thailand and, along with the four others, eventually reappeared in mainland China.
He was released in October 2017 but remained in mainland China afterwards. Then in January 2018, he was detained again while travelling to Beijing in the company of Swedish diplomats.
A month later, Gui appeared in a media conference arranged by the Chinese authorities at a detention facility.
The Swedish authorities have not released any information about the August 2018 doctor’s visit to Gui and have continued to call for his release.
Sweden honours detained bookseller Gui Minhai despite Chinese threats
In November this year PEN International’s Swedish branch handed him the Tucholsky award, given annually to a writer or publisher who faces persecution or has been forced into exile.
“This is not the first time that the Chinese regime has tried to intimidate those highlighting the egregious case of injustice against Gui Minhai,” PEN International president Jennifer Clement said.
“We fully support Swedish PEN and its decision to award Gui Minhai the Tucholsky Award and are appalled that they have faced threats by the Chinese embassy in response to that decision.”
The decision prompted an angry response from China, but Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said the country would not yield to threats.
She was accused of setting up an unauthorised meeting between Angela Gui, the bookseller’s daughter, and Chinese businessmen in Stockholm in January 2019 in an attempt to negotiate his release.
