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Human Rights Groups Call for Justice for North Korean
Refugees
Press Release, Resolution 217, March 22, 2004
While continuing to celebrate the release of South Korean photojournalist
Seok Jae-hyun from jail in China last week, Resolution217 and Helping
Hands Korea called today on the Chinese government to adhere to international
law and United Nations’ human rights standards by protecting North
Korean asylum seekers and by releasing the humanitarian aid workers still
imprisoned.
Chinese police had arrested Seok Jae-hyun and four humanitarian aid workers,
along with around 80 North Korean refugees, on 18 January 2003 in the
port city of Yantai, opposite the Korean peninsula.
Seok, a contributor to The New York Times and Geo Magazine, was photographing
the refugees' attempt to escape to South Korea and Japan by boat.
Helping Hands Korea, a Christian mission based in South Korea, and Resolution217,
a freedom of expression organization, praised the release of Seok, but
expressed their outrage that the individuals whose stories the photographer
was trying to tell were continuing to be silenced by being kept locked
away in jail and forgotten.
Helping Hands Korea routinely sends food to schoolchildren and orphanages
inside North Korea as well as provides logistical support to North Korean
refugees.
Humanitarian aid workers still imprisoned in China include:
Takayuki Noguchi
A Japanese humanitarian worker who was arrested in Nanning on 10 December
2003. Scheduled to be tried by Chinese prosecutors. He faces up to ten
years imprisonment.
Choi Yong-hoon
A South Korean humanitarian aid worker, was arrested along with Seok
on 18 January 2003 and sentenced to 5 years imprisonment and a fine of
30,000 Yuan.
Kim Hee-tae
A South Korean human rights workers, seized on 31 August 2002 with
8 North Korean refugees and sentenced to 7 years.
Reverend Choi Bong-il
A 54 year old South Korean arrested on 12 April 2002 and sentenced
to 9 years imprisonment.
Oh Young-phil
A South Korean video-journalist, currently being detained a second
time for trying to cover an escape attempt by North Korean refugees.
According to reports, after Noguchi’s arrest, the Japanese government
acted swiftly for the release. However, Noguchi refused to be released
without a simultaneous release of the North Korean refugees he was imprisoned
for trying to help.
The groups emphasized that the independent aid workers were being unjustly
punished for merely attempting to address a human rights tragedy that
China, in defiance of its own pledges and responsibilities, continues
to ignore within its own borders.
Helping Hands Korea and Resolution217 call on the Chinese
government to:
- Stop their policy of forcibly repatriating North Korean refugees
to uncertain fates that range from imprisonment to torture and summary
execution.
- Stop the arrest of humanitarian aid workers who seek only to assist
the North Korean refugees.
- Stop the harassment and persecution of journalists who try to report
on conditions the refugees face both in North Korea and in China.
- Grant the North Koreans all the rights and privileges accorded to
them by international human rights standards and refugee status.
It is estimated that between 200,000 and 500,000 North Koreans have fled
to China to escape their country’s extreme poverty and famine. Beijing,
recognizing them as economic migrants rather than refugees, has repatriated
some 3,200 of them back to North Korea where they are reported to face
forced labor camps, torture, even execution.
Seoul granted over 1,000 North Koreans asylum in South Korea in 2002,
more than double the figure for 2001.
China, in response to the increasing numbers of refugees and asylum seekers,
has made an agreement with Pyongyang to take harder measures against the
North Koreans it finds within its borders. The result is that the refugees
now face similar threats and conditions in both countries.
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