China: End Decade-long Disappearance of Swedish Publisher Gui Minhai

October 13, 2025 Comments Off

Case emblematic of Beijing’s threat to free expression in China, globally

(Chinese Human Rights Defenders, October 13, 2025)—Chinese authorities should immediately release Gui Minhai, a Swedish publisher disappeared, arbitrarily detained, and wrongfully prosecuted since 2015, and allow him to leave China.

October 17 marks the tenth anniversary of Gui’s initial enforced disappearance by Chinese authorities in Thailand. His current whereabouts and wellbeing are unknown.

“Gui Minhai’s 2015 disappearance wasn’t Beijing’s first attempt at silencing critics, or at transnational repression, but the failure to secure his release has emboldened Chinese authorities,” said Sophie Richardson, Co-Executive Director at CHRD. “Not only have they further strangled free speech inside the country, they are more aggressively doing so abroad.”

In 2012, Gui founded Mighty Current, a publishing house in Hong Kong, and in 2014 he acquired independent bookstore Causeway Bay Books. These outlets published and distributed books—popular with readers from mainland China—that painted unflattering portraits of Chinese politics and senior leaders.

In October 2015, Gui Minhai was forcibly disappeared from his vacation home in Pattaya, Thailand. Thai immigration reportedly had no record of him leaving. He was not seen or heard from until January 2016, when Chinese state television broadcast Gui giving a forced confession regarding an old traffic case. Gui was kept in police custody, but his exact whereabouts were unknown and his family were denied regular contact with him. It is unknown if he was ever granted access to a lawyer of his own choice. In October 2017 he was released from detention after apparently serving a two-year sentence for “causing a traffic accident” allegedly handed down in 2004. He was required to remain in China and report regularly to police, though he was permitted intermittent contact with his family. By January 2018 Gui had begun to show signs of serious neurological problems, and sought to travel to Beijing for medical care.

Plainclothes police detained Gui again on January 20, 2018 on a Beijing-bound train despite his being accompanied by Swedish diplomats. The last time his daughter, Angela Gui, was allowed to speak to him was the day before his abduction from the train. Chinese authorities did not make any information about his whereabouts or well-being public for another two years.

On February 24, 2020, the Ningbo Intermediate Court announced that Gui had been sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of “illegally providing intelligence abroad.” His daughter was not informed of the trial, and has never been provided with his detention location or a copy of a verdict, in violation of Chinese law. It is unknown if he had a lawyer of his own choice at the trial, and throughout these proceedings he was denied access to Swedish consular officials.

The court claimed Gui, who had become a Swedish citizen in 1992, had changed his nationality back to Chinese while in detention in 2018, though this claim cannot be independently verified. Successive Swedish governments, including current Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, have affirmed Gui’s Swedish citizenship.

Since January 2018, Gui’s whereabouts and well-being remain unknown, and Angela Gui has stated she does not know if he has received adequate medical care or is alive. In a January 2025 response to an inquiry from the United Nations (UN) on his situation, the Chinese government did not disclose his whereabouts or status. In addition to forcibly disappearing, arbitrarily detaining, and denying fair trial rights to Gui, it is also possible Chinese authorities may have denied him adequate medical care in detention, which constitutes a form of torture.

International efforts to secure Gui Minhai’s release have yet to even shed light on his whereabouts. Swedish diplomats have been denied access to him since 2018. Several Swedish governments have been criticized for failing to adequately pressure Beijing to release Gui, leading to the Swedish Parliament to examine the government’s strategy in 2022. The European Union (EU) has regularly called for his release, including during its September 2025 statement at the UN Human Rights Council, and a European Parliament resolution passed in October 2025. Beijing appears to have simply ignored these initiatives.

“A decade of raising Gui’s case, asserting his Swedish citizenship, and asking for his release has yet to result in his freedom,” said Richardson. “Stockholm should urgently impose a higher price on Beijing to secure Gui’s immediate release.”

For more information, please contact:

Sophie Richardson, Co-Executive Director, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, sophierichardson[at]nchrd.org, +1 917 721 7473

Angeli Datt, Research and Advocacy Coordinator, Chinese Human Rights Defenders,

angelidatt[at]nchrd.org, +1 934 444 6155

Shane Yi, Researcher, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, shaneyi[at]nchrd.org