NORTH KOREA

North Korean Refugess in China

Who Must Have the Authority over Them: Beijing or the UNHCR?

25 November 2002

North Korean Refugess in China

Who Must Have the Authority over Them: Beijing or the UNHCR?

On 27 November 2002, Life Fund for North Korean refugees (LFNKR) is organising a joint press conference for North Korean human rights issues to be held at the Foreign Correspondent Club of Japan, Tokyo, Yurakucho Denki Building, 20th floor

Willy Fautr, Director of Human Rights Without Frontiers, will raise the issue of the protection of North Korean refugees in China in the light of the 1995 Agreement between the UNHCR and the Government of China on the upgrading of the UNHCR office. Here is the statement by Human Rights Without Frontiers (embargoed for release until Wednesday, 27 November).

HRWF International Secretariat (25.11.2002) - Website: www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The UNHCR Global Report for 2001 reads:

"UNHCRs international protection function, as derived from its Statutes and the 1951 Convention, has evolved steadily over the past five decades. It began almost as a surrogate for consular and diplomatic protection and has now expanded to include ensuring the basic rights of refugees and their physical safety and security. The Office assists host governments to safeguard the basic rights of refugees and to take the necessary measures to guarantee protection throughout the displacement cycle, from preventing refoulement and securing asylum to the realisation of durable solutions (voluntary repatriation, local integration and resettlement). Various protection-related activities are undertaken both in the field and at Headquarters, including:

Ensuring the granting of asylum, and admission to asylum countries, and intervening, where necessary, to avoid refoulement and to ensure access to refugee status determination procedures;

Assessing needs and monitoring the treatment of refugees and asylum-seekers;

Ensuring, together with host governments, the physical security of refugees and other persons of concern;

Identifying vulnerable groups, ensuring their particular protection needs and prioritising assistance to ensure their well-being;

Supporting a number of States to establish registration and documentation systems and participating in national refugee status determination procedures or directly undertaking determination of refugee status."

Despite the UNHCR protection mandate, we have all witnessed the desperate and hopeless flight of North Koreans into diplomatic missions in Beijing as the only safe haven for them. The media images are still lingering with us. The ensuing questions, however, still remain unanswered:

• Who is to guarantee the physical safety and security of the thousands of North Koreans living in constant fear of being arrested by Chinese authorities and forcibly repatriated;

• Who is to intervene when North Koreans are denied any access to international monitoring procedures of their needs and the way they are treated by the Chinese authorities;

• Who is to ensure access of North Korean asylum-seekers to refugees status determination procedures?

On 24 September 1982, China acceded to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and to the 1967 Protocol.

On 1 December 1995, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and China signed an agreement on the upgrading on the UNHCR Mission in China to UNHCR Branch Office. On this date, the UNHCR mission in China was upgraded to a branch office for "the purpose of providing international protection and humanitarian assistance to refugees in the host country". Paragraph 5, Article III of this agreement provides for the UNHCR "unimpeded access to refugees".

Contrary to these commitments, the North Korean asylum-seekers have been denied international protection and humanitarian assistance and the UNHCR Branch Office in China is not in a position to assess their needs, to monitor their treatment by the Chinese authorities or to establish status determination procedures.

Still worse, since last March the Chinese authorities have been conducting a systematic and continuing crackdown on North Korean asylum-seekers as well as on local and international NGOs and individuals who are helping them on humanitarian grounds. As of this moment, a truck of North Korean asylum-seekers is probably being sent back to North Korea by the Chinese authorities without any international monitoring and intervention. It is obvious that China has unilaterally taken upon itself the "duty" of solving the issue by means of an unhindered silencing of North Koreans in their desperate call for international recognition of their refugee status.

As a human rights organisation, we are very much concerned with the tragic fate of all North Korean asylum-seekers and most particularly, those who have been forcibly repatriated and those who are still held in Chinese custody with uncertain future. We are concerned with the ongoing persecution by the Chinese authorities of local and international NGOs and individuals who are desperately trying to provide humanitarian assistance to North Koreans in China.

Human Rights Without Frontiers believes that there are outstanding issues that have to be dealt with urgently:

First, the forced repatriation of North Korean asylum-seekers constitutes a violation of international law and has to be recognised as such. Therefore, the Chinese authorities should immediately stop the forced repatriation of North Koreans.

Second, the Chinese government should allow the international community to provide direct and unhindered assistance to North Koreans and to ensure their physical safety and security.

Third, the Chinese authorities should provide the UNHCR with unimpeded access to North Korean refugees.

Fourth, the UNHCR should immediately conduct an investigation of the conditions of North Korean refugees in China.

And fifth, the UNHCR should establish status determination procedure and North Korean asylum-seekers should be given legal refugee status in accordance with international law.