British Consulate Worker's Family Appeal For Help

The family of a locally-based employee with the British Consulate who disappeared earlier this month following a trip to Shenzhen said on Wednesday that they have struggled to find out what's going on and have appealed for his safe return.

Simon Cheng travelled from Hong Kong to Shenzhen on the morning of August 8 for a business trip, and took the high-speed rail on his way back the same evening, messaging his girlfriend on WhatsApp and WeChat just before he was to pass through customs at about 10pm.

"We lost contact with him since then," the family said in a statement posted on Facebook.

Under an agreement reached with the mainland in 2017, mainland officials are required to notify their Hong Kong counterparts if a person from the SAR is detained across the border. However, the family have no details on where Cheng is being held.

The family said they sought help from the Hong Kong Police and the Immigration Department on August 9, and "were only told that we could travel to mainland China ourselves to report a missing case to the Public Security there".

On August 10, the Immigration Department confirmed that Cheng had been "administratively detained, but had no further details.

"Till now, we have not received any Notice of Administrative Detention, supposed to be sent out within 24 hours of a person's detention. We simply have never received any documentation confirming that Simon has been formally detained by the authorities," the statement said, adding that the British Consulate had not been able to learn more of what had happened.

However, the family said a lawyer had since confirmed that Cheng's case was being handled by the Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau, but could not find out where he was being detained.

"We feel very helpless, and are worried sick about Simon. We hope that Simon can return to Hong Kong as soon as possible," the family said.

On Tuesday, senior superintendent Kong Wing-cheung said Hong Kong police have not received any notification from mainland authorities concerning the case under the so-called “reciprocal notification mechanism”.

He said the force's missing persons unit in Kowloon West is following up on the case.

According to a 2017 agreement, mainland authorities are obliged to notify their Hong Kong counterparts of detentions within seven, 14 or 30 days depending on the seriousness of the crimes.

The new arrangement was meant to ease concerns about the notification mechanism after it came under attack when several Causeway Bay booksellers were detained on the mainland and no information was made available about them for weeks.

The British Foreign Office has said it's highly concerned.