ICC Note: Howard Lam Tsz-kin, a member of the Democratic Party in Hong Kong, was kidnapped and tortured by Chinese agents over an autograph signed by soccer star Lionel Messi that he was about to mail to the jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo’s wife, Liu Xia, who’s gone missing after the death of Liu Xiaobo. During the 9-hour ordeal, Chinese agents also mocked Lam’s Christian faith by driving a dozen of staples with the shape of cross into his legs, questioning him why he “doesn’t love his country and religion.” Hong Kong became a “special administrative region” of China in 1997 and has been governed under a “one country, two systems.” Yet in recent years China has continued to erode and violate human rights and freedom of the citizens of Hong Kong.
08/11/2017 Hong Kong (UCA News) – A Hong Kong Protestant politician has had crosses stapled to his legs after he was held unconscious by kidnappers allegedly for voicing support for Liu Xia, the wife of recently deceased Nobel Prize Laureate and political prisoner Liu Xiaobo.
Howard Lam Tsz-kin, a member of the Democratic Party, told media Aug. 11 he was kidnapped by two men while he was out shopping the day before.
Lam said they forced him into a vehicle and switched off his mobile phone and then used chemicals to render him unconscious.
When Lam became conscious, he found he was in a room in a non-urban area and that he had been stripped down to his underpants. There were four or five Mandarin-speaking men in the room who would not identify themselves, he said.
They beat him and then went one step further. Lam recounted how the kidnappers said that as he is a Christian, they would pierce him with staplers and give him his own crosses.
The men then punched more than 10 crosses using staples into his upper thighs which Lam showed during the press conference.
During the abuse and torture, Lam said one of the kidnappers asked him: “Why don’t you love your country and religion?”
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