“I have to get into the free world,” a protester who fled China by boat told the BBC.

Dong, a police officer-turned-human rights activist, has been jailed several times in China for his activism.

In the year In 1999, Dong was fired from the police force after 13 years because he signed a petition to mark the 10th anniversary of the brutality. Tiananmen crushed the pro-democracy opposition.

Then in 2001, he was imprisoned for three years for “inciting to subvert the power of the government”. According to Amnesty International, he was arrested again in 2014 for participating in another Tiananmen commemoration.

Dong had fled China four times before but was sent back each time. “But I always hold to one belief: I must go out into the free world,” he told BBC Chinese.

In September 2015, he and his wife and daughter traveled to Bangkok, where they were granted refugee status by the United Nations and allowed to settle in Canada.

But a few days before he was scheduled to go to Canada, the Thai authorities Dong was deported to ChinaHe was arrested on the pretext of “crossing national borders illegally”. He was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

In the year When he was released from prison in 2019, he tried to escape again by swimming to Kinmen, a small island in Taiwan, but Chinese fishermen captured him and handed him back to the police – and he was banned from leaving the country.

In the year In 2020, he left China and entered Vietnam. He lived in hiding in Hanoi for two years, but was eventually deported to China, where he was sentenced to a year in prison.

He was released from prison again in 2023.

These failed attempts only strengthened Dong’s determination. He made a bold and dangerous plan to cross the Yellow Sea over 300 kilometers (186 mi) to reach Japan along the coast of South Korea.

“It’s a very dangerous road, the risks are enormous, I knew I was putting my life on the line,” he said.

In May this year, after a few hours of sailing practice, Dong embarked on a 3.3-meter-long motor-powered rubber dinghy in Weihai, Shandong.

Bad weather at sea changed course and headed for South Korea.

The long hours at sea also made him dizzy and tired. He once fell asleep and woke up to find that his boat had passed a large cargo ship.

“If I had stayed asleep for 20 more seconds, I would have crashed,” he said.

On May 25 around 8:30 p.m., he saw a fishing boat nearby and shouted, “Help me, help me! Call the police, call the police!” he shouted at him. He was eventually brought ashore in the South Korean province of Taean.

Dong was sent to the Incheon Refugee Center and was later granted political asylum in Canada.

He is not the first Chinese to flee across the sea to South Korea.

In 2023, another Chinese activist, Kwon Pyong, fled to South Korea on a jet ski. He was initially arrested on immigration charges but later extradited to the US.

“He was overcome with emotion holding the plane ticket,” Dong said of the moment he was confirmed for his flight to Toronto.

Dong, who celebrated his mother’s 95th birthday just days before fleeing China, said he had not told her about his plans to leave.

“Not being able to fulfill my filial duty to my mother remains my biggest, biggest regret,” he said.

More report on Paklam Pune