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Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee, who defied China and fled to Taiwan, has died aged 70.<\/p>\n
Lam passed away at Mackay Memorial Hospital late in Taipei on Thursday after suffering from lung cancer, regional media said.<\/p>\n
He was one of several booksellers detained in 2015<\/a> after selling material critical of the political elite on China’s mainland.<\/p>\n He fled to Taiwan – which is seen by Beijing as a renegade province that must be reunited – in 2019 for fear he would be sent back to China under Hong Kong’s proposed extradition bill.<\/p>\n Taiwan’s authorities said at the time that the reopening of Lam’s Causeway Bay Books bookshop was a symbol of democracy and freedom on the island.<\/p>\n Lam was taken to Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei on Tuesday and later fell into a coma, reported the South China Morning Post citing local media. He died late on Thursday.<\/p>\n In a post on Facebook, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te wrote that he was “deeply saddened” about Lam’s death, sending condolences to his family and friends.<\/p>\n Lam’s life “bore witness to the value of freedom of expression, and to the fear and suffering inflicted by authoritarian repression.<\/p>\n “He chose not to remain silent. Instead, he reopened Causeway Bay Books in Taiwan<\/a>, turning it into a place where friends from Hong Kong could gather, speak out and support one another,” Taiwan’s leader added.<\/p>\n Last year, Lam told BBC Witness History<\/a>: “Everyone has their own values. You can’t go against your values, nor can you betray others.<\/p>\n “If you believe something is right, you should continue to stick to it. It’s not like you’re harming anyone. If everyone could do that, this would of course be a better place,” Lam said, in what was his last BBC interview.<\/p>\n In 2015, he was arrested during a visit to mainland China and held for more than 400 days.<\/p>\n He was among several bookshop owners and staff who disappeared and were later found to have been detained by Chinese authorities, as part of a crackdown on bookshops in the former British colony that sold publications critical of China’s leaders.<\/p>\n A confession broadcast on Chinese television was, he said, staged and acted out to a script<\/a>.<\/p>\n His case fuelled fears of China’s increasing encroachment on Hong Kong’s freedoms, fears which led to the months-long mass protests in 2019<\/a> in Hong Kong – China’s special administrative region since 1997.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n