China sentences HK bookseller to 10 years in prison
China sentences HK bookseller to 10 years in prison

BEIJING — Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai has just been sentenced to 10 years in Chinese prison, in what some say is a warning from Beijing that acts of resistance will be strictly punished.

CNN reports that 55-year-old Gui was put on trial by a court in Ningbo for "providing intelligence" overseas.

According to a court statement posted online, he pleaded guilty to the charge and will not appeal.

Back in 2015, Gui, a naturalized Swedish citizen, disappeared from his holiday home in Thailand.

Around the same time, four other Hong Kong-based booksellers went missing.

All were connected to Mighty Current Media, which published salacious books on President Xi Jin-pooh and the rest of China's ruling elite.

They later surfaced in Chinese police custody.

In 2016, Gui appeared on Chinese state television claiming he returned to China voluntarily to face justice over a drunk driving incident over a decade earlier.

Chinese police announced he'd been released from custody a year later, but was not allowed to leave the county.

He was taken for a second time by 10 plain clothes policemen in 2018, while traveling on a train to Beijing with two Swedish diplomats.

Sweden has repeatedly called on China to free Gui, on the grounds that he is a Swedish citizen.

But China warned Sweden not to interfere, and despite having a law that bans dual citizenship, officials claim Gui is "a Chinese national first and foremost."