Please agree to our privacy policy to enable news listening. (Central News Agency, Toronto, 27th, comprehensive foreign news reports) Dong Guangping, a Chinese dissident who fled to South Korea in a rubber boat last month, told the New York Times in an interview today that he had flown to Canada. Agence France-Presse quoted the New York Times as reporting that 68-year-old Dong Guangping used to be a policeman. Because of his strong advocacy of political reform and human rights, he has been a thorn in the side of the Beijing government for many years and has been jailed several times. The dissident, a longtime critic of the Chinese Communist Party, arrived in South Korea last month after several failed attempts to flee China and was briefly detained before being allowed to leave. After arriving in Toronto, Canada late last night, Dong Guangping said: “I am very happy. Sitting here now, I feel like I am home.” He told the New York Times that he drove a 3.3-meter-long rubber boat equipped with a 9.9-horsepower engine and set out from Weihai, Shandong, China. He originally planned to go to Japan, but soon lost his way. “The sea and sky were so vast, you couldn’t tell the direction at all,” he said. His phone ran out of battery and the ship’s engine began to malfunction, so he had to change course and head toward South Korea. Dong Guangping said that a Korean fisherman finally rescued him. It is unclear how he was released and left South Korea. Sheng Xue, a journalist who immigrated to Canada from China, posted on social media X that after Dong Guangping arrived in Canada, he “walked around the community and was so excited that he took photos with the Canadian flag.” She showed off the photo in the post. Human Rights in China, a U.S.-based advocacy group, said Dong Guangping was fired from the police for signing a petition 10 years after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing. United Nations experts pointed out that in 2001 Dong Guangping was sentenced to about three years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power” and was detained in 2014 for participating in Tiananmen-related activities. Dong Guangping later fled to Thailand with his family. Although his family later immigrated to Canada as refugees, he was handed over to the Chinese police by the Thai government in 2015 despite being recognized as a refugee by the United Nations. In 2019, Dong Guangping tried to swim to Kinmen but failed. When he went to Vietnam in 2020, he was detained by the local police. (Compiled by: Cai Jiamin) 1150628 Support the Central News Agency’s choice to stand with the facts. Every donation you make is a small amount of sponsorship to protect press freedom. Download the Central News Agency’s “First-hand News” APP to get the latest news in real time. The text, pictures and audio and video of this website may not be reproduced, publicly broadcast or publicly transmitted and used without authorization.
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