TAIPEI - Lam Wing-kee, a Hong Kong bookseller who fled to Taiwan in 2019 to avoid potential extradition to China for selling banned titles, died of lung cancer at a Taipei hospital on Thursday, local media reported. He was 70.
Lam disappeared in 2015 while managing Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong, along with four other booksellers. In fact, he had been detained in Guangdong Province for selling books banned in mainland China due to their content related to scandals involving Chinese leaders.
In 2016, he was conditionally released after nearly eight months of detention and allowed to return to Hong Kong. The bookstore, which had operated since 1994, was shuttered the same year.
He fled to Taiwan in 2019, when Hong Kong unsuccessfully sought to enable the extradition of fugitives to the mainland. He opened a bookstore in Taipei in 2020 of the same name. But his illness forced the store to temporarily close last December.
Lam continued to speak out against Beijing and its leadership after relocating to the self-ruled democratic island.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, in a Facebook post, expressed his condolences, saying he was deeply saddened by Lam's passing and praised his courage. He recalled visiting Lam's newly opened bookstore.
The Hong Konger "showed how precious freedom is and reminded us that democracy must be safeguarded through the efforts of generation after generation," Lai said.
