lørdag 26. februar 2022

Swedish olympic champion gives gold medal to man imprisoned in China

A Swedish speedskater who won double Olympic gold earlier this month in Beijing, has given one of his medals to a Swedish publisher detained in China, Amnesty International said Friday. Nils van der Poel gave the medal to the daughter of Gui Minhai, a naturalized Swede who co-owned a Hong Kong store which sold gossipy books about Chinese leaders.

Gui went missing in 2015 from his seaside home in Thailand and turned up months later in China. He was convicted in 2020 of “illegally providing intelligence overseas” and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Chinese authorities said he had admitted his crime. Human rights groups have repeatedly accused China of extracting forced confessions from individuals it perceives to be opponents of the Communist Party’s rule. Van der Poel handed over the medal to Angela Gui, who has been fighting for her father’s release for a long time, at a meeting on Thursday, Amnesty International Sweden said.