Sweden demands China release jailed bookseller Gui Minhai
Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard has called on China to release Swedish citizen Gui Minhai following her recent visit to Beijing, continuing a long-standing diplomatic dispute.
Gui, a Hong Kong-based publisher known for books critical of China’s communist leaders, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2020 for allegedly providing intelligence overseas, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
Malmer Stenergard said on X that she raised the case with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during her visit. “Our stance remains firm: Gui Minhai must be released and reunited with his family,” she wrote.
China’s Foreign Ministry has maintained that Gui is a Chinese national and warned against any interference with its judicial process.
Gui, 61, was first abducted in Pattaya, Thailand, in 2015, later released in 2017, and then detained again by mainland authorities in 2018 while traveling with Swedish diplomats on a Beijing-bound train. A Chinese court in Ningbo noted that Gui had requested the reinstatement of his Chinese citizenship, which Sweden disputes.
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