Open Letter to China’s President Xi Jinping

Four years ago, the Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, writer and publisher, was kidnapped in Thailand and later imprisoned in China. The case has increasingly gained attention in Sweden and internationally. More and more people have engaged in the issue due to China’s total lack of respect for Gui Minhai’s human rights and for the country’s disregard of fundamental international principles of law.
 
On the home page of the Chinese embassy in Stockholm, under the heading “Spokesperson’s Remarks,” there was initially a campaign against people who engaged in Gui Minhai’s case. Many Swedish journalists, editors, publishers, politicians, organisations, and researchers have since been victims of the embassy’s harassments. Moreover, China’s ambassador in Sweden, Ambassador Gui Congyou, has recently escalated this kind of rhetoric.
 
When Swedish PEN awarded Gui Minhai the Tucholsky Prize in November 2019, the Ambassador threatened the organisation that it would “come to feel the consequences of its decision.” And when confronted with the fact that the Swedish Minister of Culture Amanda Lind aimed to hand out the prize despite this critique from China, the Ambassador threatened to refuse the Minister of Culture future entry into China.
 
Sweden is a democracy, which means that Sweden has a freedom of expression. We defend this freedom by, for example, not allowing foreign diplomats to use insult or threat to silence anyone. Those who have signed this open letter want to help defend the democratic rights of our citizens.
 
We demand that
China’s Ambassador Gui Congyou stop insulting and threatening persons who criticize China and who engage in the case of Gui Minhai.
 
China respect the human rights of Gui Minhai.
 
China release Gui Minhai so that he can return home.

Svenska PEN, Svenska Förläggareföreningen, Sveriges Författarförbund och Journalistförbundet    Contact the author of the petition