Sweden has summoned China’s ambassador in the Scandinavian country over reports that Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen, has been taken away by Chinese authorities again after being released into house arrest last October. Ministry spokesman Rasmus Eljanskog said yesterday that Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom met with the ambassador to discuss the issue, but could not provide further details. Gui, a Chinese-born Swedish national, ran a Hong Kong publishing company specializing in gossipy tales about high-level Chinese politics when he disappeared from his Thai holiday home about two years ago. He later turned up on mainland China in police custody. His daughter, Angela Gui, told Swedish radio that he was on a train with two Swedish diplomats when a group of police officers seized him.
Young HK activist Wong bailed again
Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong said a court granted him bail yesterday so he can appeal a second prison sentence related to 2014’s “Umbrella Movement” protests in the semiautonomous Chinese city. “Hello World. The court approved my bail application,” the 21-year-old Wong tweeted after the hearing. Last week he was sentenced to three months in prison after pleading guilty to a contempt charge for failing to obey a court order to leave a protest camp during the 79-day pro-democracy protests that brought parts of Hong Kong to a standstill. A two-judge panel at the High Court agreed with Wong’s lawyers that the trial judge failed to consider his young age at the time of sentencing, local broadcaster RTHK reported. Wong was the most prominent of the student activists leading the 2014 protests against Beijing’s plan to limit elections for the city’s top leader.
Energy executive dismissed on graft charges
The deputy head of the Chinese Cabinet agency in charge of energy policy for the world’s second-largest economy has been dismissed on graft charges, the country’s anti-corruption agency said yesterday. The probe of Wang Xiaolin, a former longtime executive in the state-owned coal industry, adds to a string of senior officials who have been ensnared in President Xi Jinping’s marathon anti-corruption crackdown. Wang is suspected of “serious discipline violations,” the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said, using the official euphemism for corruption. It said the case was handed over to prosecutors but gave no details of the accusations against him.
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