Hong Kong officials to visit Beijing

A senior Hong Kong delegation will head to Beijing for talks following explosive revelations by a bookseller who said he was detained for eight months on the mainland, the city’s leader said yesterday, reports AFP.
Lam Wing-kee, 61, has said he was seized after crossing the border into the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, taken away blindfolded and then kept in a cell without access to a lawyer for alleged involvement in bringing banned books into the mainland.
The case has laid bare growing anxiety that the semi-autonomous city’s freedoms are disappearing.
Lam was one of five employees of a Hong Kong firm—which published gossipy books about leading Chinese politicians—to go mysteriously missing last year. All later emerged in mainland China.
Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed chief executive Leung Chun-ying said a team of senior officials would visit Beijing Tuesday to discuss Lam’s case and review the “existing notification mechanism between the two places”.
Under that mechanism, authorities on the mainland are required to give clear details about arrests and detentions of Hong Kong citizens over the border.

Hong Kong officials to visit Beijing

A senior Hong Kong delegation will head to Beijing for talks following explosive revelations by a bookseller who said he was detained for eight months on the mainland, the citys leader said yesterday, reports AFP. Lam Wing-kee, 61, has said he was seized after crossing the border into the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, taken away blindfolded and then kept in a cell without access to a lawyer for alleged involvement in bringing banned books into the mainland. The case has laid bare growing anxiety that the semi-autonomous citys freedoms are disappearing. Lam was one of five employees of a Hong Kong firmwhich published gossipy books about leading Chinese politiciansto go mysteriously missing last year. All later emerged in mainland China. Hong Kongs Beijing-backed chief executive Leung Chun-ying said a team of senior officials would visit Beijing Tuesday to discuss Lams case and review the existing notification mechanism between the two places. Under that mechanism, authorities on the mainland are required to give clear details about arrests and detentions of Hong Kong citizens over the border.