27.6.2018   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 224/78

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having regard to its previous resolutions on the situation in China, in particular those of 4 February 2016 on the case of the missing book publishers in Hong Kong (1), 16 December 2015 on EU-China relations (2) and 13 March 2014 on EU priorities for the 25th session of the UN Human Rights Council (3),

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having regard to the statement of 7 January 2016 by the European External Action Service (EEAS) spokesperson on the disappearance of individuals associated with the Mighty Current publishing house in Hong Kong,

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having regard to the 18th Annual Report of the European Commission and the European External Action Service on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) of April 2016,

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having regard to the EU-China dialogue on human rights launched in 1995 and to the 34th round held in Beijing on 30 November and 1 December 2015,

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having regard to the statement made on 16 February 2016 by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,

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having regard to the European Commission and EEAS joint communication to the European Parliament and the Council entitled ‘Elements for a new EU strategy on China’, of 22 June 2016,

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having regard to the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, in particular the articles on personal freedoms and freedom of the press, and to the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance,

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having regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 16 December 1966,

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having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948,

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having regard to the adoption of the new national security law by the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress on 1 July 2015, the adoption of the new Foreign NGO Management Law by the National People’s Congress on 28 April 2016 and the adoption of the new law on cybersecurity on 7 November 2016,

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having regard to Rules 135(5) and 123(4) of its Rules of Procedure,

A.

whereas Gui Minhai, a book publisher and shareholder of the publishing house and of a bookstore selling literary works critical of Beijing, disappeared in Pattaya, Thailand, on 17 October 2015 without trace;

B.

whereas between October and December 2015 four other Hong Kong residents (Lui Bo, Zhang Zhiping, Lam Wing-Kee and Lee Bo) who worked for the same bookstore also disappeared;

C.

whereas Gui Minhai is a Swedish citizen of Chinese origin and therefore an EU citizen;

D.

whereas on 17 January 2016 Gui Minhai appeared in a Chinese TV broadcast and apparently acknowledged that he had voluntarily returned to mainland China in order to be judged for a supposed crime involving a car accident in 2003; whereas there are serious reasons to believe his appearance on TV was staged and that he was given a script to read from;

E.

whereas Gui Minhai has been under arrest for more than a year, incommunicado, and whereas his whereabouts are unknown; whereas Gui Minhai is the only bookseller of the group still in prison;

F.

whereas the Swedish authorities have asked for the Chinese authorities’ full support in protecting the rights of their citizen, as well as those of the other ‘disappeared’ individuals; whereas neither Gui Minhai’s family nor the Swedish Government has been informed of any formal charges against him, or of the formal place of his detention;

G.

whereas Lui Bo and Zhang Zhiping were allowed to return to Hong Kong on 4 March and 8 March 2016 respectively after being detained in mainland China; whereas they asked the police to drop their respective cases and went back to mainland China on the same day they had arrived; whereas Lee Bo returned to Hong Kong on 24 March 2016 and denies having been kidnapped; whereas Lam Wing-Kee returned to Hong Kong on 16 June 2016;

H.

whereas in June 2016, Lam Wing-Kee, one of the publishers, returned to Hong Kong to close the inquiry into his disappearance, but instead of returning to the mainland, he told the media that he had been abducted by Chinese security services, kept isolated and forced to confess to crimes he had not committed in front of TV cameras;

I.

whereas Hong Kong upholds and protects freedom of speech, expression and publication; whereas the publication of any material critical of the Chinese leadership is legal in Hong Kong, although banned in mainland China; whereas the ‘one country, two systems’ principle guarantees Hong Kong’s autonomy from Beijing with respect to such freedoms as are enshrined in Article 27 of the Basic Law;

J.

whereas in the 2015 Annual Report on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the EEAS and the Commission consider the case of the five book publishers to be the most serious challenge to Hong Kong’s Basic Law and the ‘one country, two systems’ principle since Hong Kong’s return to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1997; whereas only legal enforcement agencies in Hong Kong have the legal authority to enforce the law in Hong Kong;

K.

whereas the UN Committee Against Torture has reported its serious concerns over consistent reports from various sources about a continuing practice of illegal detention in unrecognised and unofficial detention places, the so-called ‘black jails’; whereas it has also expressed serious concerns over consistent reports indicating that the practice of torture and ill-treatment is still deeply entrenched in the criminal justice system, which places over-reliance on confessions as the basis for convictions;

L.

whereas China has signed but not yet ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); whereas China has neither signed nor ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances;

M.

whereas the 17th EU-China Summit of 29 June 2015 lifted bilateral relations to a new level, and whereas in its strategic framework on human rights and democracy the EU pledges that it will place human rights at the centre of its relations with all third countries, including its strategic partners; whereas the 18th EU-China Summit of 12-13 July 2016 concluded with a statement saying there would be another round of the human rights dialogue between the EU and China before the end of 2016;

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