cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/55297201
A Chinese political dissident who had fled to South Korea last month in a dinghy has arrived in Canada, his friend said on social media on Saturday.
Dong Guangping was aboard a 3.3-meter (10.8-foot) inflatable boat in the waters off a western South Korean island in May when he was detained by South Korea’s coast guard for allegedly violating the country’s immigration law. It was his fourth known attempt to flee China.
Appearing at a court hearing in South Korea, he told reporters that he hopes to go to Canada to reunite with his wife and daughters, who have already been resettled there, according to South Korean media.
In a post Saturday on X, his friend Sheng Xue, a Chinese Canadian activist, said Dong had landed in Toronto following an Air Canada flight on Friday.
“He just had a big bowl of noodles with eggs, tomatoes and shrimps,” she wrote in the post, adding that she has spent more than 10 years trying to get him out of China.
[…]
Chinese dissident who fled to South Korea by dinghy arrives in Canada
Compass not working too good…
Kind of hard to cross the Pacific in a dinghy. I’m sure his first target was “any civilized country”.
mustve been hell of a pacific current.
Let’s hope for him that China won’t be able to fuck with his life too much in Canada; though at least AFAIK they don’t just assassinate people on foreign soil like Russia does.
I remember how they used Chinese international students to harass that Uyghur girl in UoT for speaking up against genocide.
If they live in the regions that had the Chinese “police” stations, they might get harassed. A friend of mine had a mainlander room mate till the Chinese police kept showing up and “urging” him to return home. One day he was just gone.
That’s scary…
There were a lot of articles last year about the Chinese police stations across Canada.
China tells their citizens they are Citizens of the World and have to obey Chinese policy even if they don’t live in the homeland. Which includes no negative info about the homeland. They will threaten people, or their family back home to get compliance.
Yeah, I remember reading about that. Everyone else seems to have amnesia though because whenever I bring it up they think I’m just being racist.
It’s not surprising though, since we live in a world devoid of nuance. I guess I can’t critique an oppressive nation-state actor for harassing an entire ethnicity which they think belongs to them. Apparently that’s so racist of me…
Same issue here actually. A few people said I was being racist, even though I’d linked many news articles describing how these office fronts were setup across Canada and the investigation Canada took into complaints of China operating this way against Canadian residents.
Yes, let’s hope the best. Canada ranks among the Western countries most targeted by the Chinese government (as per Citizen Lab and other reports). Important ethnic Chinese organisations have been effectively taken over by Beijing, as have most Chinese language media. Chinese embassies and consulates monitor the Chinese ethnic community and coordinate United Front activities.
Addition:
… For 15 years, Eric worked for the 1st Bureau at China’s Ministry of Public Security, a unit that specializes in surveillance of dissidents abroad. He previously told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that he spied on a Japanese-based cartoonist and a YouTuber exiled in Australia. Often, he said, his cover was working for real companies in the countries where he was deployed — companies that collaborated with China’s secret police.
For example, while on assignment in Cambodia, his cover was with the Prince Group, a multibillion-dollar conglomerate with interests in real estate and financial and consumer services. (The company did not reply to messages from Radio-Canada.)
they don’t just assassinate people on foreign soil like Russia does
And Indea.
sure, Don’t go to BC and don’t go to Waterloo, Ontario and stay far away from Spadina in Toronto.
“Convict Illegally Crosses International Borders by Sea to Evade Lawful Court Sentence”
“Tankie licks cops’ boots because the cops were anti-west.”
You have to read the article.
Dong, a former police officer in China, has been detained several times for his activism. He lost his job as a police officer in 1999 after he co-signed a letter commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, according to Amnesty International.
I did, what he did was illegal. What’s the problem?
Only illegal In a censorship regime, not a crime anywhere else, so he’s free to travel to other countries
Are you under the impression that fleeing felons under warrant in other countries are given travel documents and allowed to exit before standing trial for their crimes?
What magical world do you live in?
…and FWIW, we have people in prison right now in Canada for violation of prohibited speech laws.
Duh, he’s claiming asylum obviously from being a political prisoner. You don’t ask permission to leave. Canada accepts lots of asylum seekers
So you think it would be appropriate for another country to grant asylum to a Canadian citizen, if they fled prosecution for a Section 318 or 319 offense?
If it was a human rights violation or clearly a political arrest. Just because a country can imprision you doesn’t mean it is just.
Like thr UK arresting people for having a shirt that says Peace for Palistine, or making statements about the genocide happening. That’s no really about a terror thrrwt its the leaders who’ve made stance alligiances wanting to continue to hold power.
“Homosexual escaping execution in homophobic country is breaking the law.”
You’re a dirty rat.
Yes. This happens, literally, every single day across the world. We even have a word for it. Asylum
So this begs the question, what magical world do you live in?
He was imprisoned for three years in 2001 for “inciting subversion of state power” and spent more than eight months behind bars after being arrested in 2014 for participating in a memorial for victims of the Tiananmen crackdown
Just because a something is lawful doesn’t make it right.
Sure but it does highlight the flaws in Canada’s refugee/immigration system.
According to you?
Your moral code should define the legal codes for all humankind? Do you not believe in the right to self-determination?
It’s a little more than some rando on Lemmy that says that what happened to him is wrong, y’know. What happened to him is a clear violation of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights—Article 19, if I’m not mistaken. That means that a good chunk of the world agrees that it’s wrong.
…And a good chunk of the world has colonial capitalism and centuries of out-group exploitation to thank for whatever prosperity their nation enjoys. Also, a good chunk of the world’s high-idealed systems would undoubtedly crumble under the weight of 1,400,000,000 people.
I’m not saying that everything China does is how I would like to see things done; but I suspect we could agree that letting dissension fester until radicals storm your houses of government and compromise your elections isn’t a workable solution either.
As a secular humanist, I have to weigh the casualties of a system against the good it provides its body populace. With most liberal western democracies currently facing extreme wealth disparity, working class desperation, and some level of existential crises over ideological extremism; maybe we should reserve some level of judgement until WE have lifted 800,000,000 people out of poverty.
I’m not sure that any of the ongoing experiments in absolute individual liberty are going particularly well…
Yet you seem to think the current Chinese government’s legal code should define morality for all humankind? lol
hes a tankie of course.
Where did I say that?
Also, morality is entirely subjective.
