A Chinese human rights campaigner camped inside Tokyo airport for three months said yesterday he would end his protest within days after Beijing allowed him to return to his home country.
Feng Zhenghu (馮正虎) has been living in limbo at Narita International Airport since Nov. 4 after China repeatedly blocked him from returning home, in a case likened to Steven Spielberg’s movie The Terminal.
PHOTO: AFP
RETURNING HOME
“I have decided to return to China before the Chinese [Lunar] New Year [on Feb. 14],” Feng said by telephone. “It seems the Chinese authorities have decided to allow me to return home. Since November, Chinese embassy officials have visited the airport to see me and we have discussed my status.”
Feng, who declined to leave the airport despite having a valid Japanese visa, said he would visit his sister and friends in Japan for a few days from tomorrow, before flying back to China.
The 55-year-old activist has said he has been denied re-entry to China eight times since June and was most recently forced to return to Japan by Chinese authorities at Shanghai Airport on Nov. 3.
A BREAK
Feng has said he had traveled to Japan last April for a break after serving 41 days in detention in Shanghai.
London-based human rights group Amnesty International lists Feng as a prominent activist who has been jailed in the past.
Spielberg’s 2004 film tells the story of a man trapped in New York’s JFK Airport when he is denied entry to the US but cannot return home because a revolution there has invalidated his passport.
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