The European Parliament has called on China to release Swedish publisher Gui Minhai, ten years after he went missing in Thailand. The bookseller was later seen in China “confessing” to a drunk-driving incident on state TV, before he was jailed for ten years on espionage charges.
Last Wednesday’s joint motion urged for the 61-year-old’s “immediate and unconditional release” and for “the Chinese authorities to end the practice of arbitrary detention and forced confessions, and to immediately release all those detained for exercising fundamental freedoms, including lawyers, journalists, artists, minority representatives and human rights defenders.”
This Friday marks a decade since the Hong Kong-based publisher was taken from his apartment in Pattaya, Thailand, by unknown men. He was among four men who went missing – each were associated with Causeway Bay Books which sold titles banned in mainland China. He is the only one still detained.
An ’emblematic figure’
NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has said Gui was likely abducted by Chinese special agents operating is China and remains an “emblematic figure among the 124 journalists and press freedom defenders currently detained in China.”
They say the charge of “illegally providing intelligence to foreign countries,” which Gui faced, is an accusation routinely used by Beijing to stifle dissent.
In a press release last Tuesday, Gui’s only daughter Angela renewed her calls for his release: “Ten years on we still don’t know where my father is or how his trial was conducted. We have to assume that he is still alive, but there’s no new information so we can’t be sure. Sweden and the EU must urgently renew the calls for his immediate release. We can’t wait another ten years.”
RSF says Gui has been denied consular support and contact with family.
The former Chinese ambassador to Sweden Gui Congyou denied in 2019 that Gui had been tortured, adding that he was not a persecuted author but a criminal who has “committed serious offences in both China and Sweden, and [is] a lie-fabricator who viciously attacked the Chinese Government.”
The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs did not offer any updates on Gui’s health or status when approached by HKFP. However, a spokesperson said that Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Maria Malmer Stenergard will visit China on Thursday and Friday. She told Sweden’s Expressen that she “will, of course, highlight the consular case of Gui Minhai, who has now been imprisoned in China for 10 years…”
According to the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom Index, China ranked 178th out of 180 countries. Over 100 journalists are currently detained or under the control of the Chinese authorities, making China the world’s largest prison for journalists, RSF said.
In December 2023, South China Morning Post reporter Minnie Chan, who previously worked for the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, went missing after a work trip to China.
