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SEOUL — A Chinese language man who washed up on South Korea’s west coast final week after crossing the Yellow Sea on a water scooter, is considered a political dissident who was as soon as imprisoned in China, a South Korean human rights activist mentioned Wednesday.
Kwon Pyong, a 35-year-old ethnic Korean whose title in Mandarin is Quan Ping, arrived within the port metropolis of Incheon final week, Lee Daeseon, a Korea-based human rights activist, mentioned in a phone interview. Incheon, an hour’s drive west of the capital Seoul, is the house of the nation’s essential airport.
Lee mentioned Kwon had traveled greater than 300 kilometers, or about 200 miles, on the private watercraft from China’s Shandong province to succeed in South Korea, the place a few of his kinfolk stay. Lee, who has identified Kwon since 2019, mentioned he confirmed the person’s id after being allowed a go to Tuesday to a coast guard facility the place Kwon was being held. An in depth relative in South Korea additionally confirmed that the person is Kwon, in accordance with Lee, who mentioned he had spoken to that relative.
Kwon is searching for political asylum outdoors China, ideally in the USA, Britain or Canada, Lee mentioned. “Kwon is in good well being and good spirits,” he mentioned. Kwon beforehand studied as a university pupil in Iowa, Lee mentioned.
The Korean coast guard mentioned in a information launch Sunday that a person on a 1,800-cc pink water scooter — carrying greater than 200 liters, or greater than 50 gallons, of gasoline — had beached on Incheon’s wetlands and was detained for crossing the border illegally. It mentioned the individual had visited Korea beforehand however didn’t disclose the person’s title and refused to remark additional, citing privateness considerations.
The coast guard’s particulars of how the person was discovered advised he had ready for the journey totally: He was carrying a life jacket and a helmet and carrying binoculars and a compass. He had dumped empty gasoline canisters into the ocean after refueling alongside the way in which.
In 2017, Kwon was jailed for 18 months in China for “inciting subversion of state energy” after he posted speeches, pictures and movies on social media vital of the Chinese language authorities. In a single picture, Kwon wore a white T-shirt that likened China’s prime chief, Xi Jinping, to Hitler. A Chinese language courtroom mentioned Kwon had insulted the “state authority and the socialist system,” in accordance with Entrance Line Defenders, an advocacy group that has adopted his case.
This dissident makes use of Chinese language-owned TikTok to criticize China’s authorities
Since being launched from jail, Kwon has been topic to an exit ban stopping him from departing China legally, Lee mentioned. He tried to depart China and enter Korea by submitting a political asylum utility in 2019, however the course of was finally canceled due to the journey ban. Below Xi, China is more and more utilizing exit bans to maintain critics of the regime — residents and foreigners alike — within the nation, the place they are often extra simply surveilled and silenced.
The Chinese language Embassy in Seoul refused to remark, saying it has no related details about the case.
After getting back from Iowa, Kwon labored for a household enterprise in his hometown of Yanbian, a commerce hub on the China-North Korea border. On social media platforms that at the moment are banned in China, he posted criticism of the federal government’s censorship and political controls and help for dissidents and protests, his former attorneys mentioned on-line and to the media in 2019. All of his Fb and Twitter posts have since been deleted.