Gui Minhai is a Chinese-born Swedish writer, publisher, bookseller and freedom of speech activist. He is unlawfully imprisoned in China for publishing and selling books critical of the Chinese regime. In late 2015, Minhai and his four colleagues at Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong disappeared and later resurfaced in detention on the Chinese mainland. He has been in Chinese police custody ever since. Read more about Minhai here.

Gui Minhai was sentenced to ten years in prison in a secret trial in February 2020 for “illegally providing intelligence overseas”. Chinese authorities have not explained what this means.

Gui Minhai 桂民海 is a Chinese name, where the family name is written first. Gui is thus his surname and Minhai his given name. If you are an English speaker, Gui is pronounced ‘g-way’.

No. Minhai received Swedish citizenship in 1993 and renounced his Chinese citizenship thereafter.

Swedish officials were last allowed to see Minhai in January 2018, which was also the last time he was allowed to contact his family.

Causeway Bay Books, which specialised on literature banned on the Chinese Mainland, shut its doors in December 2015 following the disappearances. Lam Wing-kee, the store’s founder, reopened the store in Taipei in 2020. You can support Causeway Bay Books by liking its Facebook page here.

Minhai has high blood pressure. Based on conversations he was able to have with his family while in residential surveillance in 2017, he also seems to suffer from nerve damage which may have been sustained through his treatment in detention. He sought medical attention for this condition in 2017, and the doctor who examined him expressed concerns that he may be showing signs of the neurogenerative disease ALS. Further medical investigations attributed his symptoms to injury.

Because neither the Swedish government nor his family are given any information on Minhai's health from Chinese authorities, it's unclear what his health status is today.

We ask that you refrain from using footage from forced confessions when using an image to represent Gui Minhai, unless it is for a context that directly relates to forced confessions. Re-publishing footage taken under duress and without consent further violates the rights of the subject. If you would like to be sent images that you can use instead, please contact press@freeguiminhai.com.