The Taean Coast Guard Station / Courtesy of Korea Coast Guard
A court on Thursday rejected a request for a warrant to arrest a Chinese dissident who fled China in a rubber boat and arrived in Korea earlier this week by sea.
The Seosan branch of the Daejeon District Court made the decision in a hearing for Dong Guangping, who is accused of violating the Immigration Control Act.
Dong was discovered by a fishing vessel in waters off Taean, a county on Korea's central west coast, at 9:36 p.m. Monday, while drifting in a 3.3-meter-long rubber boat.
The Coast Guard, dispatched after receiving a report, detained Dong at the scene and took him to Shinjin Port to investigate the circumstances of his entry into Korean territorial waters.
According to news reports, Dong, who served as a police officer and soldier in China, was dismissed from the police in 1999 for co-signing a letter commemorating the 10th anniversary of the crackdown on protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
After participating in a Tiananmen Square memorial event in 2014, he was detained by Chinese authorities and has since escaped from China and been repatriated several times.
Source: Korea Times News
