31 Refugees arrested in China; In danger of repatriation back to N.K.

News Links (English)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17123208

More than 20,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since a famine hit their homeland in the mid-1990s. Almost all of them traveled through China, with the help of Christian missionaries, human rights activists or smugglers. But Beijing considers them illegal migrants, and the Chinese police often round them up for repatriation.

Those who are sent back are treated as “traitors” and are incarcerated in re-education camps, where corporal punishment, forced labor and other human rights abuses remain rampant, according to North Koreans who have survived the camps and defected to South Korea.

 

News Links (Korean)
http://news.naver.com/main/hotissue/read.nhn?mid=hot&sid1=100&cid=307283&iid=509942&oid=023&aid=0002363184&ptype=011 ‘

“서류 한 장이 없어 죽음의 문턱에서 딸을 구하지 못하는 부모의 심정을 무슨 말로 표현할 수 있겠습니까.”

최근 중국에서 체포된 탈북소녀 A 양의 가족들은 14일 외교통상부를 찾아가 “제발 내 딸이 한국 국민이라는 서류를 떼달라”고 호소했다. 전날 부모에게 전화를 걸어온 A 양이 “공안 관계자가 한국인이라는 영사관의 증명서류를 가져오면 석방해 주겠다고 한다”고 전해왔기 때문이다. 하지만 외교부는 “A 양은 북한 사람으로 인정되기 때문에 서류를 발급해 줄 수 없다”고 거절했다. 수년 전 탈북해 한국에 정착한 부모들은 “우리 딸은 미성년자이고 부모가 다 한국에 살고 있다”면서 “우리 정부가 탈북자를 북한 주민으로 규정한다면 중국에 탈북자 석방을 요구할 명분도 약해지는 것 아니냐”고 안타까워했다. A 양은 최근 중국에서 체포돼 북송 위기에 처한 탈북자 31명 중 한 명이다.

http://news.naver.com/main/hotissue/read.nhn?mid=hot&sid1=100&cid=307283&iid=27988943&oid=020&aid=0002314801&ptype=011

http://news.naver.com/main/hotissue/read.nhn?mid=hot&sid1=100&cid=307283&iid=509943&oid=023&aid=0002363190&ptype=011

사람 목숨 살리는 일인데 左右·정치가 뭐가 중요한가… 돌려보낸 탈북자 처형될 수도

“사람 목숨이 걸린 일입니다. 우리 동포를 돕는 일이고요. 좌우(左右)나 정치적 이해관계가 뭐가 중요합니까. 생명을 살리는 건 정치나 외교를 넘어선 일입니다.”

배우 차인표(45)씨가 중국 당국의 탈북자 송환을 막기 위해 연일 목소리를 높이고 있다.

http://news.naver.com/main/hotissue/read.nhn?mid=hot&sid1=100&cid=307283&iid=510159&oid=001&aid=0005526596&ptype=011

 

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Further Information on Shin Dong Hyuk

Escapee Tells of Horrors in North Korean Prison Camp
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/10/AR2008121003855_3.html 

 

 

Born and raised in a North Korean gulag
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/world/asia/09iht-korea.4.6569853.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

 

I was a Political Prison at Birth in North Korea
http://www.northkoreanrefugees.com/2007-09-atbirth.htm

 

Escapee of North Korea’s brutal prison camp tells his horrifying story

Part 1/2

 
Part 2/2

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Story of Shin Dong Hyuk, Born and Raised in Prison Camp

Shin was born in Camp No. 14 to parents whose union was rewarded by prison guards for excellent work as laborers. Born and raised in the prison camp, Shin thought doign forced labors all day long, getting beatings from guards, and starving from lack of food were normal things that everybody was going through.

However, fourteen years after living in the prison camp his life started changing drastically. His mother and brother were caught trying to escape, and the then-fourteen year old boy was taken undergroudn cell by the guards. For seven months, he suffered from unbearable tortures from the prison guards that wanted him to confess about the family escape plan that he knew nothing about. On Nov. 29, 1996, he and his father were made to sit in the front row of a crowd assembled to watch executions. There, his mother was hung and his brother was shot right before his eyes.

"They built a charcoal fire. Shin was stripped of his clothes. Ropes were tied to his arms and legs and secured to the ceiling of the cell. He was dangled over the fire. When he writhed away from the flame, a guard pierced his gut with a steel hook to hold him in place."

Then, in 2004, his life was going to take another, rather positive, turn. An older cellmate who had worked with him in the garment factory and helped Shin recover from his torture wounds started telling him about life beyond the camp. The world where food was literally everywhere. Once his eyes opened to the world outside of the prison camp, he could no longer focus on the works that he had to do. He wanted to escape and “everyday became an agony”. 

On Jan. 2, 2005, Shin and his cell-mate attempted to jump over the electric fence when no guards were in sight. The cell-mate tried to escape first but was  electrocuted from the high voltage fence. Then, Shin stepped on his corpse and climb over the fence to the outer world.

Shin stepped over his dead friends body to escape to the outer world

In July 2005, Shin reached China, and in August 2006, he finally arrived in South Korea.

Shin testifies that he does not want vengeance, as he says, “Kim Jong Il is a gangster. If we kill him, we will be just like him.”

Instead, Shin wants to spread awareness about the sufferings in the Concentration Camps. His wish is that South Koreans and the rest of the world would pay more attention to the conditions that people in the prison camps are subjected to and how much pain they feel every single day of their lives.

Shin in South Korea

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Female N.Korean refugees suffer abuse

Many female North Korean refugees suffer violence or human trafficking after fleeing their homeland, a watchdog has said

If you are a North Korean, you would be in a dire need of protection of your human rights under the government’s oppression. If you are a North Korean and woman, you would know that wherever you go, the protection of your rights would be barely possible.

Even once a few of those North Koreans successfully flee their own country, they face the similar, if not worse, oppressions and  human rights infringements. The following  recently-reported article sheds light upon this situation of female refugees in China and how they live in a sickening fear until they find a safe haven.
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The report by the National Human Rights Commission was its first on the plight of women refugees in third countries and followed interviews and a survey of 274 defectors last year.

“Border areas are where most of the human rights infringements against women take place,” university professor Lee Im-Ha, who helped conduct the survey, told a press conference.

Virtually all North Koreans fleeing their country cross into China, where they face forced repatriation if caught. Many travel on to Southeast Asian nations in the hope of eventual resettlement in South Korea.

Many suffered abuses at refugee camps in China and other countries, the survey found. Almost 20 percent of the women bribed North Korean guards with money or sex to get across the initial border, it said.

China’s forced repatriation policy has been strongly criticised by rights groups.

At a Washington press conference in April last year, North Korean women who escaped the sex trade in China said brokers there treated them like livestock by selling them to one or more “husbands”.

Almost 17,000 North Koreans have arrived in the South since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

[AFP – Feb. 21, 2010]

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Some Suggestive Reading List

In 2009, North Korea received 300,000 tons of food aid. However, 1/3 of North Koreans still remain starved.

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Interview with a North Korean defector who survived in one of the most notorious Yoduk political prison camp.

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It’s very positive to hear that North Korean defectors who now reside in South Korea voluntarily decided to train to help others just like them to acclimate into South Korea. Indeed, educating newcomers from North Korea to adjust into South Korea is a crucial stepping stone for the smooth transition into the later unification which may occur anytime in our generation.

                                                                         
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Four South Koreans are allegedly detained in the North for illegal entry.

 

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Vote for LiNK to Help It Win $250,000 (Update)

Liberty in North Korea (LINK), which is one of the most active and largest organizations helping North Korean refugees, is competing with 189 organizations for the grant from Pepsi and only the top 2 will be awarded $250k. 

The poll ends on February 28th, and anyone can vote once a day, but can vote again daily every day.  It’s currently in the 4th place, 2 more spots to go. Here is a message from Hannah Song, the president of LINK:

Here’s some information about our project idea: Liberty House. Since the passage of the North Korean Human Rights act in 2004, almost 100 North Korean refugees have resettled here in the US, all over the country.

LiNK has helped to resettle fifteen of these refugees and has sought to provide them with supplementary assistance (scholarships, financial aid, tutoring, mentoring, community, etc). With the launch of our recent campaign over the holidays, TheHundred, we anticipate many more refugees making it here to the US over the next year.

We have had the tremendous privilege to see refugees as young as 14 and as old as 65 settle down and begin new lives; a couple finally married after waiting years in the underground; two babies born here who are now American citizens; a young woman already in community college studying to be a counselor for other North Korean women who were also sexually trafficked. Although learning a new language and culture are difficult, they are resilient, hard-working and determined to take on this new opportunity.

Through our extensive research surveying refugees who have resettled both in the US and in Korea, and observing resettlement centers in South Korea (including Hanawon and other agencies), we realize that the assistance they receive from the government is often not enough.

We are taking those learnings to create a unique program here in the US to help refugees acculturate and succeed in their new lives. With this grant we will be able to launch a transitional home that will serve as a safe environment and community for these refugees as they learn English, American culture and history, how to use an ATM and sign-up for a grocery card, apply for their citizenship and find a job, and eventually gain independence to successfully live on their own. We have many of the partnerships already in place – but we lack the funding to move forward.

We are SO close and are very hopeful that we could win this! We need everyone’s vote once a day, every day, until February 28th. Pepsi will award the $250k to the top 2 groups. Signing up only takes a few minutes and voting takes 30 seconds! Please vote here and help us spread the word by tweeting, facebooking, emailing and asking your friends, family and networks.

[Excerpt from One Free Korea]

It only takes less than a minute to cast a vote. Please vote for LINK to help it actualize its worthy cause!

[Update]: Here are their goals addressed:

• Provide job training, and career counseling for refugees.
• Provide medical and psychological services for North Korean refugees.
• Provide food for North Korean refugees once resettled in the U.S.
• Facilitate language acquisition and cultural orientation for refugees.
• Provide housing for North Korean refugees once resettled in the U.S.

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Ji-eun’s Story

JoongAng Daily’s article features a story of Ji-Eun, a North Korean defector who currently resides in Seoul. Her father died in North Korea when she was little and the family had a hard time carving out a living in the poverty stricken nation. In 2000, when she was 6 years old, her mother decided to escape North Korea with Ji-eun in a hope to find food and a better living. 

After living anxiously in China for a while, they eventually ended up boarding on a plane heading to South Korea.

Ji-eun pictured a wonderful life in South Korea when she was on the plane. But after she arrived, she found that things were quite different than what she had imagined, recalled Ji-eun, who turned 15 this year.

“Why did you come to Korea, you beggar?” one person asked her. “Were you hungry?”

“Go back to your country because there’s nothing we can give you,” said another.

The rest of the article can be found here, and it needs some moment to think about what it means for N. Korean defectors to face not acceptance but isolation and discrimination by the society even after their life-risking escape out of North Korea.   Ji-eun’s story is especially telling because it may well represent the sad story of hundreds of thousands of N.Korean defectors, and by all means, ourselves.

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Robert Park released

An American Christian activist Robert Park , having been detained in North Korea since the last Christmas, has been released and arrived in Beijing today. He will later be taken to the U.S. embassy.
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… according to comments attributed to Robert Park by Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency, the North Koreans have convinced him that he was wrong in his view of the North, whose “concentration camps,” Mr. Park said in an earlier interview with Reuters, were “of the same brutality as in Nazi Germany.”

In the same report in which the KCNA dispatch announced that Park would be freed, he was quoted as saying that “people have been incredibly kind and generous here to me, very concerned for my physical health as never before in my life.” He was, he was quoted as saying, “very thankful for their love.”
[Christian Science Monitor]
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KCNA said Park had confessed to illegally entering the state and that he had changed his mind about North Korea after receiving kind treatment there.

“What I have seen and heard in the DPRK convinced me that I misunderstood it. So I seriously repented of the wrong I committed, taken in by the West’s false propaganda,” KCNA quoted Park as saying.
[Reuters]s

Some may find this response from Park as somewhat unexpected, but the quotes that the North Korean agency claims to be Park’s are no way to be trusted as accurate until he reveals his experiences and the decision through his own sincere voice.

So what did Park accomplish? It may be not as intangible as it seems. Perhaps, thanks to his decision to make a life-risking entry into North Korea, the manifest human rights abuses and the misgovernment of Kim Jong-Il regime could take another rare chance to come under the world’s spotlight once more without the loss of anyone’s life.

Some raise doubt as to the importance of raising worldwide attention on substantially improving the actual living conditions of North Koreans. But in the long run, the greater public and media awareness is indispensable to a more powerful and united voice from the international community that may be effective enough to induce any internal changes in North Korea.

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News Update – February 1 2010

66 North Koreans Given Refugee Status in Canada: Canada granted 66 North Korean defectors refugee status in 2009, which is almost 10 times higher than in 2008, a report said Saturday.
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N.Korea’s Weapons Exports ‘Down 90%’ Since UN Sanctions, which included the banning of all arms exports from the country since last year. However, the institute said Iran may still be receiving weapons from North Korea as it has long been a key supplier of missile technology to the Middle Eastern country.
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Two Koreas hold talks days after exchanging gunfire: Despite the flare-up in tensions, officials from both Koreasd met at the North Korean border town of Kaesong to discuss how to further develop their joint factory park.

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MUST-WATCH: Crossing

Crossing is the first major independent film to capture the dire situation of North Korean refugees and North Korea’s denial of human rights crisis, and is South Korea’s official entry for the 2009 Oscar Best Foreign Language Film category.

“a ‘Schindler’s List’ for North Korea.” — Wall Street Journal

The film is about a North Korean father who crosses the border to China in search of food, leaving his ailing wife and 11-year-old son behind. After reaching South Korea, he desperately tries to bring his family out of North Korea. It is an extremely sad and realistic portrayal of the daily lives of North Koreans, political prisoners and refugees. This film was also nominated by the South Korean Film Academy as the representative film for the nation to the 2009 Academy Awards.
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You can find the rest of the film here with English subtitles!

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