North Korean defectors take on China over forced returns of fellow escapees
A group of North Korean defectors will head from Seoul to New York next week to appeal to the United Nations to stop China from repatriating hundreds of fellow escapees back to their authoritarian homeland.
Last month, human rights groups reported Beijing had forcibly returned about 600 escapees to the North, while Seoul’s unification ministry also confirmed that a “large number” of North Korean citizens had been repatriated after the dictatorship loosened its Covid-19 restrictions.
There are now fears that hundreds more could be deported back to North Korea in the months ahead, after research from activists and the UN’s envoy on human rights, Elizabeth Salmon, indicated there were some 2,000 defectors languishing in Chinese detention centres.
“The repatriated refugees are treated as criminals or traitors by the North Korean authorities,” said Thae Yong-ho, one of North Korea’s highest-level defectors, during a press conference in Seoul.
“Their punishment may include imprisonment without legal process, enforced disappearance, lifelong detention in prison camps and even execution.”
The campaign to stop further repatriations had been born out of the belief that “silent and quiet diplomacy with the Chinese government on this issue could not resolve this humanitarian catastrophe,” added Mr Thae, who now sits in South Korea’s National Assembly.
British parliamentarians from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea are among those calling for the international community to pressure China to grant escapees safe passage to asylum in the South.
The defectors heading to New York hope to urge UN human rights officials to name and shame China for refusing to allow North Koreans safe transit or to adhere to the agency’s 1951 Refugee Convention, which outlines the rights of refugees and international obligations to protect them.
At the heart of the Convention is non-refoulement, which asserts that a refugee should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom.
Among those travelling next week is Byeongrim Lee, whose 17-year-old son was caught in Kunming, southern China, while he was trying to join her in Seoul.
Her son had simply wanted to “live in a better world” where he could enjoy electricity and three meals a day, she said during Thursday’s press conference.
“He is not a criminal, but he is treated as a criminal and he was deported to a prison camp in North Korea. At the moment, his family does not know where he is or if he is alive or dead,” she said.
“Imagining my son under corporal punishment and starvation it feels like I have thousands of rocks in my heart. I hope that such things would never happen again to North Korean refugees,” said Ms Lee.
“I really hope I can say for one last time to my son in person that I love him and to hug him before I die.”
For decades, North Koreans fleeing extreme poverty, starvation and political oppression have attempted to transit China en route to Southeast Asia and sanctuary in South Korea.
Before the pandemic, more than 1,000 were welcomed every year in Seoul, but during Covid-19 border closures and lockdowns, the journey became all but impossible. Since 2020, just 458 North Koreans have made it to the South.
Crackdowns by the Chinese authorities, aided by sophisticated surveillance technology, has also made such journeys increasingly perilous, forcing many defectors to rely on unscrupulous and abusive traffickers.
The terrible dangers they face if caught have been well-documented by rights groups like the Database Centre for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB).
The Seoul-based NKDB has recorded 8,125 cases of forced repatriation of North Koreans and 32,198 cases of human rights violations inflicted on them.
Myeonghui Ji, a defector who now lives in Seoul, said she had been so badly tortured during an interrogation in 2016 that she still suffered mental and physical pain. “I want the international community to know the brutality that I faced,” she said.
Yeonghak Heo, a father of two who will also travel to New York next week, said his wife had been forcibly returned to North Korea by China in 2020. “She was innocent and had never broken any laws,” he said. “It was only natural that she wanted to join her two daughters.”
The Chinese government routinely labels fleeing North Koreans as “illegal economic migrants”.
In a statement to the Telegraph in September, the Chinese embassy in London said: “The Chinese government attaches great importance to and protects the legitimate rights and interests of foreign citizens in China in accordance with the law.”
It added that it “always properly handles the illegal entry of the DPRK citizens in accordance with domestic and international laws and on humanitarian grounds,” referring to North Korea’s official name – Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
A growing number of British parliamentarians are joining those who are speaking out.
In October, the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on North Korea strongly urged the Chinese authorities to immediately cease the longstanding practice of forcible repatriation.
One person who knows firsthand the terror of being sent back to such a cruel regime is Timothy Cho, one of the few North Koreans to escape twice.
He now lives in Manchester, works for the APPG and also acts as a spokesperson for the Christian charity Open Doors, advocating for North Korean human rights.
“I have personally experienced repatriation once, and I am familiar with the process of imprisonment, torture, and punishment that follows … Even if we can rescue just one person through these diplomatic efforts in collaboration with the South Korean government, it would be a significant achievement,” he wrote to MPs.
Mr Cho escaped from North Korea in his teens, and was brutally interrogated after being forced back. After a second escape, where he was again arrested in China, he thought he would be executed in North Korea but was granted deportation to the Philippines after missionaries advocated for his safe release.
“I was so lucky. If I had been returned to North Korea again, I would not be alive today. That’s a fate I want to spare my brothers and sisters, currently in prison in China,” he said.
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