‘I think I’m half dead’: Hong Kong police to protect Lam Wing-kee in wake of claims he was tailed
Force to assess ‘so-called’ risk faced by bookseller and follow up with ‘suitable measures’
Hong Kong police said on Wednesday that protection would be offered to bookseller Lam Wing-kee, after he told a newspaper he had been tailed six times since returning to the city.
The force had earlier refused to provide such protection.
“Mr Lam’s account of events is different from our findings,” acting police chief Wong Chi-hung said.
“We will contact Mr Lam and assess the risk he is facing, if any. Suitable measures will be provided to counter those so-called risks.”
He explained that no protection was offered earlier because a vehicle that Lam said was following him was actually hired by a media organisation. Police also found “nothing unusual” in an account by a witness.
Wong was speaking after Chinese-language daily Ming Pao published an interview with Lam on Tuesday, in which he lamented that he had lost his “freedom from fear” in Hong Kong and was worried he would be abducted and taken to mainland any time, like what allegedly happened to his ex-colleague Lee Po.
Lam’s exposé came hours before Chinese public security chiefs told a high-level Hong Kong delegation to Beijing that the bookseller could face tougher legal action for skipping bail and refusing to return to the mainland.
“Police have not offered any protection to me ... I used to enjoy freedom from fear in Hong Kong, but now it’s lost,” he told Ming Pao.
Lam said the most worrying incident happened on June 29, two days ahead of the annual July 1 pro-democracy march that he was supposed to lead. Four men allegedly followed him closely from Lai King MTR station to Yat King House in Lai King Estate, where he was then hiding.
The men were eventually blocked by a gate, but one of them stood at the entrance to see which lift Lam got into and which floor he took it to.
The bookseller said he became aware of this only after a shopkeeper nearby, who witnessed the whole incident, told him via his relatives. The shopkeeper told Ming Pao that he had already reported what he saw to police. Lam pulled out of the July 1 march at the last minute, citing safety concerns.
Lam said he was also tailed twice by people on motorcycles, once while he was en route to police headquarters in Wan Chai, and once on July 1, when he was moving from Lai King Estate to another safe house.
The remaining three incidents happened on the MTR, he said.
Lam said he reported all the alleged events to the police and requested their protection when he tried to move to a new hiding place on July 1, but was rejected.
“I once hoped they would provide me personal protection, but they cited different excuses [to turn me down],” he said.
Lam, manager of Causeway Bay Books and one of the five booksellers who went missing since last year, caused a stir last month after he returned from the mainland by claiming he had been nabbed after crossing the border into Shenzhen and put through eight months of “mental torture”.
The incident has been regarded as a huge blow to the principle of “one country, two systems”, as it was widely believed to be an attempt by the central government to crack down on the bookstore, which sold publications critical of the Communist Party.
Lam, who earlier said he had no plans to leave his hometown, told Ming Pao that he was now thinking of moving to Taiwan, though he had not considered seeking asylum.
“I think I am half-dead [in Hong Kong]. I cannot work, and I could be stuck in one place,” he said.
“It seems that the Hong Kong government does not welcome me being here, even though I am a Hongkonger.”
He hoped the city’s administration could investigate whether mainland agents had enforced the law in Hong Kong by looking into immigration records and CCTV footage from the MTR.
