FILE – Freed Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee stands subsequent to a placard with an image of lacking bookseller Gui Minhai, left, in entrance of his e book retailer throughout a march in Hong Kong on June 18, 2016.
Kin Cheung/AP
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Kin Cheung/AP
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Lam Wing-kee, a former Hong Kong bookseller who turned an emblem of resistance to Beijing’s crackdown on speech freedom after he was seized by Chinese language authorities in late 2015, has died in Taiwan, the island’s official Central Information Company reported, citing an unnamed supply.
The information company did not give a reason behind dying, however mentioned the 70-year-old Lam had a most cancers relapse final yr and was admitted to MacKay Memorial Hospital in Taipei on Tuesday. He fell right into a coma on Wednesday and died Thursday night, in response to the report.
Lam, who beforehand labored at Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong, moved to Taipei in 2019 over fears of authorized troubles and reopened the bookstore beneath the identical identify within the Taiwanese capital in 2020.
Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te provided his condolences in a Fb put up.
“The passing of Mr Lam Wing-kee is deeply saddening, however the braveness he left behind wouldn’t fade,” Lai wrote. “Taiwan will keep in mind that a Hong Kong bookstore employee as soon as advised us in probably the most bizarre but most steadfast manner how treasured freedom is and reminded us that democracy requires the efforts of technology after technology to defend it.”
Lam was one in every of 5 individuals affiliated with Causeway Books who disappeared in late 2015. The shop bought books and magazines purporting to disclose secrets and techniques concerning the inside lives of Chinese language leaders and the scandals surrounding them.
One of many 5, writer Gui Minhai, went lacking from his vacation residence in Thailand and was later sentenced to 10 years in jail in China on a cost of illegally offering intelligence abroad.
In an act of defiance, Lam gave an explosive account of his expertise in 2016 that contradicted official Chinese language accounts of what occurred to the 5 booksellers.
He mentioned that he was seized by Chinese language authorities in October 2015 after crossing the border from Hong Kong to the town of Shenzhen on China’s mainland, and that he was blindfolded for a 13-hour practice experience to the jap metropolis of Ningbo, the place he was saved beneath 24-hour surveillance in a room for 5 months by rotating two-person groups.
Talking to a packed information convention in Hong Kong, he mentioned he was later pressured to seem on Chinese language tv to admit to crimes.
In June, Lam advised the Central Information Company that he had quickly closed the bookstore in Taipei due to his well being and that he could not say when it’d reopen.
Chinese language and Hong Kong authorities have additional tightened controls over the territory following large anti-government protests in 2019.
Hong Kong police arrested two individuals in June on suspicion of promoting seditious publications and receiving funds from overseas political organizations, performing beneath a latest nationwide safety regulation.
