4,000 protesters against China in Hong Kong

More than 4,000 people in Hong Kong joined a protest today against China's detention of five booksellers.

Protesters in Hong Kong took to the streets on June 18 to protest against China. Photo: Reuters.

The protest came a day after 100 activists marched to China's representative office in Hong Kong to protest what they called "cross-border kidnappings," Reuters reported.

Protesters chanted "protect freedom of the press, freedom of publication and freedom of speech" and demanded that Beijing release Swedish national Gui Minhai, one of the five detainees still in China.

Gui appeared on Chinese television on January 17 and said he had surrendered to police. He had been sentenced to two years in prison, suspended, for drunk driving that killed a 20-year-old female student in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, in 2004. He fled the mainland in August 2006.

Lam Wing-kee, who has since been released, said on June 16 that he was arrested in China and held for more than eight months. Meanwhile, his colleague Lee Bo, a British national, was “kidnapped from Hong Kong”.

Alvin Yeung, from the Civic Party in Hong Kong, said the arrests challenged the "one country, two systems" policy that China applied to Hong Kong when it was handed back to China from Britain in 1997.

The five booksellers, who all went missing last year, later resurfaced in mainland China. They all worked in Causeway Bay, which sells publications critical of Beijing’s leadership and containing personal details about high-ranking officials and their families. Such books are banned in mainland China.

According to VNE