▲ The Taean Coast Guard Station (Yonhap)

(LEAD) Chinese dissident-warrant hearing

(LEAD) Court denies arrest warrant for Chinese dissident who fled to S. Korea by sea

(ATTN: UPDATES with denial of warrant in first 2 paras; CHANGES headline)

SEOUL, May 28 (Yonhap) -- A court on Thursday rejected a request for a warrant to arrest a Chinese dissident who fled China in a rubber boat and arrived in South Korea earlier this week by sea.

The Seosan branch of the Daejeon District Court made the decision in a hearing for Dong Guangping, who is accused of violating the Immigration Control Act.

Dong was discovered by a fishing vessel in waters off Taean, a county on South Korea's central west coast, at 9:36 p.m. Monday, while drifting in a 3.3-meter-long rubber boat.

The Coast Guard, dispatched after receiving a report, detained Dong at the scene and took him to Shinjin Port to investigate the circumstances of his entry into South Korean territorial waters.

According to news reports, Dong, who served as a police officer and soldier in China, was dismissed from the police in 1999 for co-signing a letter commemorating the 10th anniversary of the crackdown on protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

After participating in a Tiananmen Square memorial event in 2014, he was detained by Chinese authorities and has since escaped from China and been repatriated several times.

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