China: PEN International and PEN Centres worldwide renew call for the release of Gui Minhai, the imprisoned poet, bookseller and PEN member
‘The abduction of poet, bookseller and PEN member Gui Minhai ten years ago was an alarming escalation of the Chinese government’s resolve to silence criticism and extend its repressive state apparatus beyond its borders. Today, we continue to stand in solidarity with Gui Minhai and demand his immediate release’, said Burhan Sonmez, President of PEN International.
17 October 2025: Today, on the 10-year anniversary of Gui Minhai’s kidnapping, PEN International and PEN Centres around the world stand in solidarity and renew our demand for his immediate and unconditional release. We also call on governments worldwide to act in support of securing his freedom.
Gui Minhai is a poet, bookseller and member of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre (ICPC) who is serving a 10-year prison sentence imposed after his conviction on trumped-up national security charges on 24 February 2020. He is one of five Hong Kong booksellers who were subjected to enforced disappearance in late 2015 and the last who remains imprisoned.
On 17 October 2015, Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen, was abducted from his vacation home in Thailand and was not seen in public until months later, when PRC state media aired a forced confession video where Gui Minhai claimed he had voluntarily returned to China to turn himself in for a 2003 traffic offence. Briefly released while under continued surveillance in late 2017, Gui was subsequently detained by plainclothes police officers on 20 January 2018, whilst in the company of two Swedish diplomats on his way to Beijing for medical testing.
Despite repeated efforts from the Swedish government to ascertain the whereabouts and well-being of their citizen since January 2018, the Chinese government has repeatedly failed to disclose Gui Minhai’s location and has denied him full consular access, a violation of international law.
In the absence of any updates, there are increasing concerns over Gui Minhai’s access to adequate medical care, the denial of which is routinely used as a form of punishment and deliberate ill-treatment for those detained on politically motivated grounds. High-profile examples include writer, Nobel laureate, and two-time president of the ICPC, Liu Xiaobo, who was belatedly diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer while serving an 11-year prison sentence. One month after his diagnosis, Liu died in a hospital bed under police guard, raising serious questions about his treatment.
Additional information
Gui Minhai, born on 5 May 1964, was the owner of Mighty Current Media and joint owner of its retail arm, Causeway Bay Books, which, before its closure in Hong Kong, was a popular destination for those seeking to buy books that were banned or otherwise unavailable in China’s mainland. Several poems written by Gui during his initial detention were published in 2020 as a poetry collection titled, I draw a door on the wall with my finger (2020). In 2019, Gui Minhai was awarded PEN Sweden’s Tucholsky Prize.
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PEN International
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Independent Chinese PEN Center
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PEN Sweden
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PEN America
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PEN Paraguay
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Pen Belgique Francophone
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PEN Argentina
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PEN Québec
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PEN Trieste
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PEN Chile
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PEN Denmark
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PEN Vietnamese Abroad Centre
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PEN Afghanistan
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PEN Latvia
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PEN Bolivia
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PEN Centre of German-Language Writers Abroad
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PEN Syria
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PEN Esperanto
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PEN Sydney
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Swiss German PEN Center
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PEN Türkiye
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PEN Malaysia
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PEN New Zealand
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PEN Lebanon
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PEN Nederland
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Palestine PEN
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PEN Català
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PEN Nigeria
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PEN Cuba in Exile
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PEN Slovenia
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PEN Norway
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PEN Bangladesh
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PEN Chiapas
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PEN Flanders Belgium
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PEN Eritrea
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Pen Romania
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English PEN
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Macedonian PEN
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PEN Ukraine
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PEN Cambodia
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PEN Malta
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Uyghur PEN
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PEN Zambia
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PEN Canada
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PEN Sierra Leone
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PEN Korean Centre
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PEN Uganda
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PEN Sri Lanka
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PEN Melbourne
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PEN Zimbabwe
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PEN Jordan
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PEN Finland
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PEN Afrikaans
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Japan PEN Club
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Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann
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P.E.N. Club Liechtenstein
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Tibetan writers Abroad PEN
