China detains Hong Kong booksellers

It's 10 years since a Hong Kong bookseller who was detained for selling material critical of China’s leaders, was released and went public.

In 2015, Lam Wing-Kee and four other men who published and sold books went missing. The case of the booksellers raised international concerns that Hong Kong's judicial independence and freedom of speech were being eroded. Protests followed.

On 21 June 2016, Mr Lam was released after eight months in detention on the Chinese mainland and he returned to Hong Kong. He tells Josephine McDermott that he took the decision to hold a press conference because “If I didn’t speak out, Hong Kong’s freedoms of speech and press would suffer in silence”.

Lam Wing-Kee left Hong Kong in 2019 fearing new extradition rules. In Taiwan, he reopened Causeway Bay bookstore.

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(Photo: Lam Wing-kee at a rally after his release. Credit: Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images)

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