Dong Guangping, 68, was spotted Monday evening by South Korean forces while he was drifting off the country’s west coast on a 3.3-meter rubber dinghy equipped with a 9.9-horsepower engine, police said.
Dong Guangping, a Chinese human rights defender imprisoned several times by Beijing, fled China aboard an inflatable boat and reached the shores of South Korea, his lawyer said on Wednesday. Mr. Dong, 68, was spotted Monday evening by South Korean forces while he was drifting off the country’s west coast on a 3.3-meter rubber dinghy equipped with a 9.9-horsepower engine, police said.
He was taken to South Korean territory for questioning on suspicion of violating immigration laws. His South Korean lawyer Kim Joo-kwang confirmed his identity to AFP, while refusing to provide details on the starting point of this perilous crossing. The lawyer added that his client’s current situation is “very likely a case of requesting political asylum”.
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He spent about three years in prison
Dong Guangping, a former police officer, is known for his opposition to the Chinese Communist Party and for his advocacy of political reforms and human rights. He was fired from the police after signing a petition, ten years after the repression of the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989, according to Human Rights in China, an NGO based in the United States. He spent about three years in prison starting in 2001 for “Incitement to subversion of state power”according to a UN expert report. He was detained again in 2014 for activities related to the memory of Tiananmen.
He had fled to Thailand with his family, who then settled in Canada with refugee status. But for his part, Mr. Dong was handed over to the Chinese police in 2015 by the Thai authorities, despite his status as a refugee recognized by the UN. His crossing to South Korea was reported by pro-democracy activist Sheng Xue, who lives in Canada.
“He hadn’t slept in over fifty hoursâ€
“Dong Guangping is truly resilient and courageous! (…) I spoke to him last night. Dong said he was unconscious when he arrived in South Korean waters. He had not slept for more than fifty hours and had been at sea for more than thirty hours, exposed to the sea winds.she explained in a message in Chinese on X. The dissident had left from Weihai, in Shandong province (eastern China), “after careful inspection and preparationâ€she added.
Seoul has granted political asylum to a small number of applicants since formal processing of refugee applications began in 1994, despite tens of thousands of requests. The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests from AFP on Wednesday.
