A Chinese dissident reached South Korea in a rubber boat
Dong Guangping, a 68-year-old Chinese dissident, has arrived on the coast of South Korea after attempting to flee China in a rubber motorboat.
This was reported by The Guardian.
The former police officer, who has become a critic of the Chinese government, is being held in South Korea after being detained by the coast guard on the evening of May 25. It is believed that he hopes to move to Canada, where his family lives.
Shen Xue, a Chinese dissident in Canada, said the man traveled for more than 30 hours by boat from Weifang on China’s east coast to South Korea’s South Jeolla Province. The distance between them is more than 300 km.
According to the woman, Dong was “nearly unconscious” when he reached South Korean waters.
The dissident was previously imprisoned between 2001 and 2004 for “inciting subversion of state power.” He frequently had run-ins with the authorities due to his activism related to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing.
Dong has attempted to flee China several times. In 2015, he fled with his wife and daughter to Thailand. But Thai authorities detained and deported him back to China, despite the fact that the UN Refugee Agency had granted him refugee status.
Dong was imprisoned for over three years. After his release in 2019, he attempted to reach the small Taiwanese island of Kinmen but got stranded at sea, and fishermen took him back to China.
In 2020, he fled again to Vietnam, but was arrested there as well and returned to China.
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