Beijing/Taipei, April 26, (dpa/GNA) – Beijing confirmed on Wednesday that Li Yanhe, editor-in-chief of a Taiwanese publisher, had been under investigation by China’s national security authorities.
Li is under investigation because he is “suspected of engaging in activities threatening national security,” Zhu Fenglian, spokeswoman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, told journalists in Beijing.
Zhu also said Li’s rights, will be ensured during the investigation.
This is the first official statement from Beijing after media reported that Li, was arrested in March, shortly after he arrived in Shanghai to visit his family.
Li, also known by the pen-name Fu Cha, was born in 1971 in the Chinese province of Liaoning. After marrying a Taiwanese woman, Li relocated to Taiwan in 2009 and established Gusa Press, which published books criticizing the Chinese Communist Party.
Last week, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), which handles dealings with Beijing, said that Li remained safe and his family members declined to make related information public.
On Wednesday, MAC minister Chiu Tai-san told reporters in Taipei that the opinions of Li’s family members should be respected.
Chiu said the MAC will collect more information from China and stay closely in touch with Li’s family.
On Saturday, a group of Taiwanese and foreign writers and scholars, who maintain business connections with Gusa Press, issued a statement, urging Chinese authorities to immediately release Li.
Signatories included Chinese dissident Wang Dan, a former Tiananmen Square student leader who witnessed the June 4 massacre in 1989, and Larry Diamond, a leading US political sociologist in the field of democracy studies.
GNA