By Christine Khamis

Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

 

HONG KONG, China –

A Hong Kong bookseller who recently disappeared may have kidnapped by Chinese authorities and brought to mainland China.

Lee Bo, who published and sold books critical of China’s government, was reported missing by his wife last week. Mr. Lee’s wife then withdrew the missing person’s report when she received a letter in his handwriting stating that he had traveled to mainland China to assist with a police investigation. Mr. Lee’s wife says that in addition to the letter, he has also contacted her by telephone. Human rights activists believe that Mr. Lee was under duress when he contacted his wife.

However, there is no official record of Mr. Lee traveling to the mainland. Mr. Lee also failed to take his travel permits with him, which are necessary for travel between Hong Kong and the mainland.

Mr. Lee is associated with Mighty Current Media, a publishing house partly owned by his wife. Mighty Current’s books were sold at the Causeway Bay Bookstore, in which Mr. Lee is a shareholder. Mighty Current is known for publishing gossip-style books about Chinese leaders. The publisher has released books about topics that many other publishers purposely don’t cover, such as Chinese president Xi Jinping’s love affairs.

Albert Ho, a legislator in Hong Kong, states that the bookstore was planning on releasing a book on President Xi Jinping’s personal life and was told not to do so. Mr. Ho believes that Mr. Lee was kidnapped and taken to mainland China.

Four of Mr. Lee’s colleagues have also disappeared recently, including another Mighty Current co-owner named Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen who went missing in Thailand in October. The other three were last seen in mainland China, according to the BBC.

Mr. Lee has dual citizenship of China and Britain due to Hong Kong’s status as a former British colony. However, the Chinese government does not acknowledge dual citizenship and any efforts on Britain’s part to retrieve Mr. Lee may not be successful.

Hong Kong is a former British colony that was returned to China in 1997 through an agreement between Britain and China. When China gained sovereignty over Hong Kong, it was under a “One Country, Two Systems” model that gave Hong Kong a separate legal system and freedoms of speech and press. As part of the “One Country, Two Systems” model, Britain and China agreed that Hong Kong would have autonomy for 50 years.

Mr. Lee has dual citizenship of China and Britain due to Hong Kong’s status as a former British colony. However, the Chinese government does not acknowledge dual citizenship and any efforts on Britain’s part to retrieve Mr. Lee may not be successful.

Many in Hong Kong fear that the disappearance of Mr. Lee and the other booksellers signifies China’s growing control over Hong Kong. Hong Kong citizens are beginning to feel apprehensive about what the mainland’s growing power will mean for their own civil liberties and legal rights.

 

For more information, please see:

 New York Times – Many in Hong Kong Fear Beijing’s Reach After Editor’s Disappearance – 7 January 2016

Hong Kong Free Press – The Missing Booksellers: If We Let This Go, Will Hong Kong Still be Hong Kong? – 7 January 2016

International Business Times – Who is British Dissident Bookseller Lee Bo, Feared Kidnapped by Chinese Authorities? – 7 January 2016

BBC – Hong Kong Bookseller Mystery Deepens After Letter Appears – 5 January 2016

 

 

 

By Christine Khamis

Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

 

COLUMBO, Sri Lanka –

International human rights groups Freedom from Torture and the International Truth and Justice Project have released reports indicating that Sri Lankan authorities continue to allow torture and other abuses against the Tamil people. Human rights abuses have continued despite President Maithripala Sirisena’s promises to address such abuses when he came into power last year.

Freedom from Torture and the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) have presented evidence of torture and sexual abuse of Tamil minority victims at the hands of Sri Lanka’s intelligence and military officials. There have been 27 separate cases of human rights abuses in the last 12 months, according to their reports. Freedom from Torture, a UK-based organization that provides medical aid to torture survivors, was involved in eight of those cases.

Freedom from Torture has reported that it has medical evidence of torture by Sri Lankan military and intelligence officials. The victims were all from the Tamil minority group. Two of the victims that Freedom from Torture helped said that they had undergone detention and torture in a notorious military camp in northern Sri Lanka. Others reported that they had been tortured in a jungle camp. Most of the victims that Freedom from Torture helped have scars from being branded. Most of them were also sexually abused.

The report from the ITJP, an organization based in South Africa, includes testimony of 20 survivors and evidence from medical reports which corroborated the survivors’ accounts of torture and other abuses. The report also indicates that forced abductions, a practice that was common under Sri Lanka’s previous government, may also still be occurring. The ITJP says that the Tamils continue to undergo repression and torture at the hands of Sri Lankan officials.

Sri Lankan officials have denied the allegations in the reports. Cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne says that Sri Lanka’s Defense Ministry has no information on the torture allegations and that it will investigate the cases if the organizations send them the evidence. Brig Jayanath Jayweera, Sri Lanka’s Army Spokesman, also denied the allegations, saying that Sri Lankan media would have reported on any abductions and torture.

When Mr. Sirisena became president in January 2015, he pledged to introduce widespread reform and bring reconciliation among Sri Lankan communities by addressing human rights abuses.Sri Lanka has also been under much international pressure to address human rights violations.

In September, the United Nations called for a special war crimes court to address the crimes committed by both the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels during Sri Lanka’s civil war, which ended in 2009. So far, Sri Lankan’s government has launched a domestic inquiry into the alleged war crimes, with limited assistance from the international community.

Last month, Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera announced that Sri Lanka’s government had signed an international agreement banning abductions by the state and agreeing to the protection of human rights.

 

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Tamils ‘Still Tortured’ in Sri Lanka, Say Rights Groups – 7 January 2016

The Guardian – Sri Lanka Accused of Allowing Continuing Human Rights Abuses – 6 January 2016

The Sunday Times Sri Lanka – Lanka’s Torture Machine Continues in Peacetime – 6 January 2015

Sri Lankan Guardian – Torture Casts a Shadow Over Sirisena’s First Year as President of Sri Lanka – 6 January 2016