By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
A new study that concerns treatments of North Korean refugees after they are forcibly returned from China to North Korea puts pressure on the Chinese government to stop repatriating North Korean refugees. Tens of thousands of North Koreans are thought to have crossed into China, propelled by hardship or persecution. China treats them as economic migrants and sends them back.
The 48-page report is titled “A Prison Without Bars.” The chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Michael Cromartie, says the report is based on interviews with 32 refugees who fled North Korea for China from 2003 to 2007 and with six former North Korean security agents who defected to South Korea during the past eight years. He called on countries to press the Chinese government to stop sending North Korean refugees back to their homeland and provide increased protections as required by international protocols.
The report said that repatriated North Korean refugees were often subjected to harsh interrogation, torture and long detentions without trial if found to have converted to Christianity or had contact with South Korean Christians or churches while in China. Former North Korean security agents told the commission that authorities set up mock prayer meetings to entrap new converts in North Korea and train staff in Christian practices for the purposes of infiltrating churches in China.
Refugees said that merely owning a Bible could lead to arrests, disappearances and even deaths of those repatriated. “Its up to the condition of the guards. Because killing a prisoner will do no harm for them,” one interviewee said. Another refugee, claimed that “a person was shot to death” on a riverside in Hoeryeong, a North Korea city along the border with China, for accepting a Bible from South Korean priests. According to the report, the treatment was part of Pyongyang’s efforts to prevent the spread of religion.
For more information, please see:
AFP – China slammed over “grave” crisis facing NKorean refugees – 16 April 2008
BBC – China ‘must not return N Koreans’ – 16 April 2008
Chosun News – U.S. Report Hits North Korea On Religious Rights – 16 April 2008
International Herald Tribune – U.S. congressional report finds abuse of returned North Korean refugees – 15 April 2008
Reuters – U.S. panel urges China not to repatriate North Koreans – 15 April 2008
Washington Post – NKoreans with religious ties face peril – 15 April 2008
