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Calls mounting for defectors'safety
Nine young North Korean defectors pose in this photo taken 35 minutes before they were apprehended by Laotian police on May 10. Former lawmaker Park Sun-young, who works for North Korean human rights, released the photo, Saturday. Courtesy of Park Sun-young
By Jun Ji-hye
By Jun Ji-hye
The international community is demanding safety assurances for the nine young North Korean defectors who were deported the Laotian government to China, which repatriated them.
Human rights advocates urged North Korea to disclose their whereabouts and guarantee their safety.
“North Korea has to come clean on where these nine refugees are and publicly guarantee that they will not be harmed or retaliated against for having fled the country,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asian division of Human Rights Watch, Friday.
Robertson told reporters that the defectors aged between 15 and 23 years old are at dire risk in the wake of their return as the isolated state is known to torture those caught trying to escape and those repatriated.
The United States’s State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Washington is also very concerned about the fate of the nine.
“We urge all countries in the region to cooperate in the protection of North Korean refugees within their territories,” she told reporters. “We do remain very concerned about their well-being, and we're monitoring it closely.”
Rupert Colville, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, criticized the Chinese and Laotian governments for sending them back to the North where they would face harsh punishment including possible execution.
“We are dismayed that the governments of Laos and China appear to have abrogated their non-refoulement obligations, especially given the vulnerability of this group, all of whom are reported to be orphans,” he was quoted as saying by AFP.
The principle of non-refoulement, a term used under international law, forbids the expulsion or forcible return of refugees to where their life, freedom or physical integrity would be threatened.
Dennis Halpin, a former staff member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and now a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, joined the criticism against the Southeast Asian country, claiming they betrayed a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” on North Korean Refugees.
“Laos reneged on a gentleman’s agreement on North Korea refugees which they had previously reached with the South Korean Embassy in Vientiane,” he said in his contribution published in the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Thursday.
According to Halpin, the Korean Embassy has held North Korean refugees at a safe house in Vientiane on the condition that they kept a low profile in accordance with the agreement between the two countries.
He said he heard of it directly from diplomats in Vientiane while visiting the country in January 2009 as part of a congressional delegation to the Asia Pacific Parliament forum, adding that his real reason for visiting was to assist a family of North Korean refugees and bring them to the U.S.
Faces made public
Meanwhile, Korean missionaries, who helped the repatriated defectors in Laos, revealed their faces in a video filmed right before and after they were arrested by Laotian police.
In a video clip, nine defectors were wearing green T-shirts in union as an attempt to disguise as a group of foreign tourists, putting on happy faces and showing a v-sign in a hope of going to the South. But, after about 30 minutes when they were caught by the police, their expression rapidly changed to anxious looks.
Missionaries said they decided to disclose the video in order to appeal to the international community for help and prevent the North from putting them to death.
Following the incident, the ruling Saenuri Party said they will again push ahead with passing a bill on North Korean human rights in the National Assembly extraordinary session which opens Monday.
“The nation should enact a law improving human rights conditions in the North and preventing its defectors from being placed in great danger as seen in the latest incident,” said Rep. Hwang Woo-yea, chairman of the ruling party.
The Saenuri Party submitted such a bill years ago, but it is still pending at the Assembly due to opposition from liberal parties concerned that the move could anger the Stalinist country and worsen inter-Korean relations.