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Key Points
- The jet ski rider is believed to be Chinese rights activist Kwon Pyong.
- He travelled 300km before calling for help while stuck at South Korea’s Incheon port.
- He was towing five barrels of fuel and used a compass and binoculars to navigate.
A man believed to be a Chinese rights activist has been arrested in South Korea after riding more than 300km on a jet ski to get there.
Wearing a life vest and helmet, the man crossed the Yellow Sea from Shandong province on the 1800cc jet ski while towing five barrels of fuel. He used binoculars and a compass to navigate.
South Korea-based campaigner Lee Dae-seon of NGO Dialogue China named the man as Kwon Pyong.
Kwon, 35, had posted pictures on social media mocking Chinese President Xi Jinping, and spent time in jail in China for subversion, Lee told AFP on Tuesday.
“While his means of entry into South Korea in violation of the law was wrong, surveillance of the Chinese authorities and political persecution of Kwon since 2016 are behind his life-risking crossing into South Korea,” Lee said.
“He is now weighing whether to apply for refugee status in South Korea or choose a third country,” he said.
A release from the South Korean coast guard said: “He refilled the petrol on the ride and dumped the empty barrels into the sea.”
When his jet ski got stuck in tidal flats near the western port city of Incheon’s cruise terminal, he called for rescue.
The coast guard said the man, who they did not identify, was arrested after he “attempted to smuggle himself into” Incheon. Authorities said they found no sign the man was a spy.
South Korea only grants a handful of refugees asylum each year.
The Chinese embassy in Seoul declined to comment when contacted by AFP.
Human rights activists say China is preventing people from leaving
A report earlier this year indicted that preventing them from leaving.
The report by the rights group Safeguard Defenders pointed to the cases of three Australian journalists as well as “tens of thousands” of Chinese who are banned from exit at any one time.
In 2020 the ABC’s Bill Birtles and Australian Financial Review’s Michael Smith were banned from leaving China for several weeks in a case that involved a tense diplomatic standoff between Beijing and Canberra.
Both men were told they were “persons of interest in a case” that involved disappeared Chinese-born Australian journalist Cheng Lei.
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