Causeway Bay Books, founded in 1994 in Hong Kong, originally sold and published books critical of the Chinese government. Between October and December 2015, five employees of the bookshop were kidnapped from the Chinese mainland, Thailand and Hong Kong itself, later reappearing in public to confess to lurid crimes. Their confessions had all the marks of being forced.
The kidnappings had a chilling effect on independent bookshops and publishers in Hong Kong. Lam Wing-kee, the founder of Causeway Bay Books, is currently the only one of the kidnapped booksellers to remain free; he escaped after being temporarily released in Hong Kong by Chinese authorities.
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