NORTH KOREA
China arrests 48 North Korean defectors
Urgent appeal by Mdecins Sans Frontires
Joint Press Conference scheduled for January 21, 2003 at 3:00 PM, at Foreign Press Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo ,Yurakucho Denki Building, 20th Floor
20 January 2003
China Arrests 48 Defectors
by Kim In-ku
Chosun.com (20.01.2003)/HRWF Int. (20.01.2003) - Website: www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Chinese police arrested 48 North Korean defectors, while 12 escaped as they were being taken away, and about 20 are missing after an attempt to smuggle them into Korea and Japan, it was reported Monday.
According to staff from a missionary organization that has been supporting the North Korean defectors, said that NGOs of Korea and Japan had been planning to stow away 60 escapees from the North in two 20-ton ships. In the process of transferring the defectors to another city, 20 more North Koreans joined.
The Chinese police organized an arrest party for the 80 North Korean last Wednesday. An official of the missionary group said he heard three of the defectors arrested had been sent back to North Korea. He also explained that this plan had been concocted at the end of last year in order to help more defectors.
According to a Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) article on Monday, 48 North Korean escapees attempting to cross the Chinese border on boats were arrested with three other helpers on Saturday. They are currently in danger of being sent back to North Korea.
Women and children are also known to be among the defectors. Mdecins Sans Frontires (Doctors without Borders) criticized China's decision and demanded refugee status for the defectors from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The Chinese authorities and the North Korean army have been ferreting out North Korean defectors along the border since last December. The DPA reported that 3,200 escapees have been sent back to North Korea until mid January and 1,300 are confined in camps in China.
Urgent appeal for the protection of North Korean refugees in China
Mdecins Sans frontires( 20.01.2003)/HRWF Int. (20.01.2003) - Website: www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - On January 18, 48 North Koreans, including families with children, who were about to leave China by sea and seek asylum either in South Korea or Japan, were arrested by the Chinese security services in Yantai City, Shandong Province. Three aid workers who assisted them were arrested as well. The detained North Koreans, as do thousands of their countrymen, face the risk of being severely interrogated by Chinese security services and forcibly repatriated to North Korea where a grim fate awaits them. As for the three aid workers, they may be subject to long-term imprisonment in China. The case of this group of 48 North Koreans is most revealing: it unveils the distress of the North Korean refugee population in China and the urgent necessity to provide them assistance. It graphically illustrates a human tragedy that will not be solved through repression. We can only condemn the Chinese arrest of these asylum seekers and denounce the recurring non-observance of their right to flee and the persecutions they are subject to.
Within the past three years, China has arrested and forcibly repatriated thousands of North Koreans in flight from their own country in search of asylum and assistance. Since early December 2002, as a way to definitively eliminate the embarrassing question of North Korean refugees, China has launched a new manhunt in collusion with North Korean security services. As of mid-January 2003, 3200 North Korean civilians in China have already been repatriated as a result of this so-called " 100 day campaign ". 1300 others are awaiting their repatriation in the detention centers of Tumen and Longjing. The systematic and organized dragnet taking place in China leaves North Korean refugees no other alternative than a desperate flight to a third country, at the risk of their very lives.
The humanitarian aid workers who attempt to rescue North Korean refugees also face the brutal determination of the Chinese authorities, who deem the assistance of North Korean refugees as a criminal offense. In addition to facing jail terms, deportation and fines for assistance, Yanbian residents who are suspected of being humanitarian aid workers are now forced to take a written oath to the effect that they will not provide assistance to North Korean refugees. Bounties for the identification of either humanitarian aid workers or North Koreans remain commonplace. Predictably, in this context, support for North Korean refugees in distress is diminishing and assisting them has become a challenge that increasingly few aid organizations, crushed by this sanction policy, are able to undertake.
As international attention is now turned to Pyongyangs regime for a separate crisis, the fate of North Korean refugees remains resolutely ignored. Neither Chinas repeated violation of international conventions nor desperate attempts by hundreds of North Koreans to seek asylum in foreign representations have resulted in measurable progress on the question of the protection of North Korean refugees in search of asylum. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Beijing, approached repeatedly on this matter, has simply been unable to ensure their protection.
MSF earnestly urges the UNHCR to demand from the Chinese authorities access to the North Koreans under arrest and to examine their asylum requests. MSF asks that according to the dispositions of International law, the North Korean detainees not be repatriated and that they be protected. MSF asks that the humanitarian volunteers be freed.
Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) vigorously condemns the repression and the forced repatriation of North Koreans in China. It denounces the Chinese measures aimed at criminalizing the humanitarian assistance directed to the North Koreans.
Joint Press Conference scheduled for January 21,2003 at 3:00 PM, at Foreign Press Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo ,Yurakucho Denki Building, 20th Floor
Participants in the joint press conference will be:
Mdecins Sans Frontires - Bureau, Seoul
Douglas Shin - Human rights activist, Los Angeles
Tim Peters- Helping Hands Korea
Chun Ki-Won -South Korean activist who was detained in China
Members of Durihana mission- South Korean NGO to Help North Korean refugees
Hiroshi Kato (Secretary-General, Life Fund for North Korean Refugees), who was also detained in China
Norbert Vollertsen
Several other South Korean and international activists who also were involved in the operation inside China
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