Mainland Chinese police said in a statement last week that Cheung,
Lui and colleague Lam Wing Kee were being investigated but would be
released on bail.
Two missing booksellers return to China hours after re-appearing in HK - report(Reuters)
Two Hong Kong booksellers released from mainland Chinese custody after going missing went straight back to China after returning home to ask police to drop their missing persons cases, a Hong Kong newspaper reported.
The two, Cheung Chi Ping and Lui Por,
were among five Hong Kong booksellers who disappeared over the past six
months and re-surfaced in mainland Chinese police custody.
The five were from Causeway Bay Books, a shop that specializes in gossipy political books about Chinese leaders.
Many
people in Hong Kong believe the booksellers, who have appeared in a
series of confessions and interviews on Chinese television, were
abducted by mainland agents.
Their cases have raised concern in Hong Kong that Chinese authorities are overriding a "one country, two systems" formula protecting Hong Kong's freedoms since its return to mainland China from British rule in 1997.
Cheung
and Lui were released on separate days last week and travelled to Hong
Kong to ask police to drop their cases. Hong Kong's South China Morning
Post newspaper, citing unidentified sources, said both then crossed back
into mainland China on the same days.
A spokeswoman for the Hong Kong police declined to comment.
Telephone
calls seeking comment from the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, the
Chinese government agency that oversees issues regarding the two former
European outposts, went unanswered.
China has
denied wrongdoing. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, asked
about the case at a daily news briefing in Beijing, said he did not have
a "grasp" of the situation and declined further comment.
Lui did not answer his telephone and the other booksellers could not immediately be reached.
The
reported swift return of the two to mainland China after asking Hong
Kong police to drop their cases is likely to fuel speculation about
whether they are acting freely or not.
Mainland
Chinese police said in a statement last week that Cheung, Lui and
colleague Lam Wing Kee were being investigated but would be released on
bail.
It was not clear what would happen to their
two other colleagues, Gui Minhai, who is a Swedish national and went
missing while in Thailand, and Lee Bo, who is a British national and
went missing from Hong Kong.
The South China
Morning Post said Cheung had told immigration officers at the border
checkpoint that he was in a hurry. He declined to give police a formal
interview or to give an official statement, the newspaper said.
This
week, a series of at least 10 emails reviewed by Reuters showed that
Lee had expressed fears that Gui had been taken by Chinese agents for
"political reasons" before he, himself, went missing.
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