A Hong Kong bookseller whose disappearance sparked international concern said on Sunday that he was so despondent during his detention by authorities in mainland China that he considered suicide.
Lam Wing-kee said he thought about using his clothes to hang himself but couldn’t find a way to do it in the small room where he was kept under constant watch for five months. Mr Lam and four other men who worked for a Hong Kong publishing company disappeared in 2015, only to turn up months later in police custody on the mainland.
The publisher specialised in gossipy books on China’s communist leadership that were popular with Chinese visitors to Hong Kong but banned on the mainland.
Their case raised concerns that Beijing is tightening its hold on the former British colony and undermining its considerable autonomy.
Hong Kong retains rule of law and civil liberties such as freedom of speech unseen on the mainland under its status as a special Chinese administrative region that runs until 2047.
Mr Lam, 60, returned to Hong Kong on Tuesday, following three other colleagues who had done so earlier. But he went off the script written for him by the Chinese authorities and spoke out Thursday at a press conference, giving a harrowing account of his ordeal, which unfolded when he paid a visit to the neighbouring mainland city of Shenzhen in October.
He was handcuffed and blindfolded, taken on a 13-hour train ride and then confined to a small room for months while he was interrogated about the authors writing for the Mighty Current publishing company and the customers at its Causeway Bay Bookshop, which he managed.
Mr Lam’s story contradicted the version of events given by his colleagues to the Chinese media and Hong Kong police, in which they said they travelled to the mainland voluntarily to aid in investigations or confess to crimes.
Mr Lam said he was forced to sign a confession admitting to illegally mailing books to mainland buyers.
He said his interrogators were particularly interested in details about the writers behind two of the company’s books. One was about a Communist party directive that urged officials to curb the spread of ideas such as press freedom, judicial independence, civil rights, civil society and the party’s historic mistakes.
