Tag: refugees

It looks like Emperor President Xi has decided to crack down on North Korean defectors before his trip to North Korea this week:

A decade after leaving her family behind to flee North Korea, the defector was overwhelmed with excitement when she spoke to her 22-year-old son on the phone for the first time in May after he too escaped into China.

While speaking to him again on the phone days later, however, she listened in horror as the safe house where her son and four other North Korean escapees were hiding was raided by Chinese authorities.

“I heard voices, someone saying ‘shut up’ in Chinese,” said the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her son’s safety. “Then the line was cut off, and I heard later he was caught.”

The woman, now living in South Korea, said she heard rumours her son is being held in a Chinese prison near the North Korean border, but has had no official news of his whereabouts.

At least 30 North Korean escapees have been rounded up in a string of raids across China since mid-April, according to family members and activist groups.

It is not clear whether this is part of a larger crackdown by China, but activists say the raids have disrupted parts of the informal network of brokers, charities, and middlemen who have been dubbed the North Korean “Underground Railroad”.

“The crackdown is severe,” said Y. H. Kim, chairman of the North Korea Refugees Human Rights Association of Korea.

Reuters

You can read more at the link.

I hope Ms. Shin understands that peace is not going to allow her to go home to North Korea with out repercussions. As long as the Kim regime remains in place, defectors will never be welcomed back with open arms:

A tearful North Korean defector shouted “Please, let me go back home!” as a black limousine carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un passed by her in Hanoi on Tuesday.
Shin Eun Ha is one of two North Korean defectors who flew to Vietnam to wish for progress during a second summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump this week. They joined a crowd gathered near a Hanoi hotel where Kim is staying.
Shin said she hopes the summit will help achieve peace so she can return to her hometown of Musan, which she fled in 2003.
“For defectors, North Korea isn’t a country of hatred but a place that we are desperate to go back to even in our dreams,” Shin told The Associated Press. “I hope to see a day when we can go back to North Korea by taking a train like Kim Jong Un used to come here.”
Later Tuesday, when Kim’s limousine left his hotel, escorted by motorcycle outriders, Shin cried and shouted repeatedly, “Please, let me go home.”
“I don’t understand why we should live while missing our hometown,” Shin said.
She and her fellow defector came as part of a popular South Korean TV program featuring North Korean defectors. Shin, a 30-year-old nurse in Seoul, has been a regular guest on the program, titled “Now On My Way to Meet You.”

Associated Press

I would expect the US will keep this defection very quiet until a way ahead on a second Trump-Kim summit is figured out:

The disappearance and alleged request for asylum by former North Korean defector Jo Song-gil are posing a challenge for North Korea and the United States as they prepare to meet, as the former acting ambassador to Italy is reportedly seeking asylum in the United States.

Washington remains mum over these reports from the Italian media, apparently wary of the fallout from the issue ahead of their possible second summit set to take place in the near future.

The U.S. Department of State declined to confirm anything on the reports on Friday that Jo, who has reportedly been in hiding for weeks, has expressed hopes to settle in the U.S.

The 44-year-old North Korean diplomat has been missing with his family since early November without prior notice. Jo’s specific whereabouts remain unknown. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but former diplomat defector Thae Yong-ho has request that Jo seek asylum in South Korea. Considering the Moon administration’s cozy relationship with the Kim regime I can understand why he doesn’t want to go to South Korea.

S. Korea will grant refugee status to zero of the roughly 500 Yemenis that arrived on Jeju to flee the civil war in their home country, though many will have humanitarian visas allowing them to stay for one year.https://t.co/DFEljNiwwv

— Jonathan Cheng (@JChengWSJ) October 17, 2018

Seriously? South Korea agreed to enforce the North's writ against defections? Isn't that essentially China's refugee policy & an agreement to tear up the 1951 Refugee Convention? https://t.co/LMeHeXmuKT

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) October 16, 2018

Members of nongovernment organizations call for the deportation of “fake refugees” from South Korea in a rally held in downtown Seoul on Oct. 14, 2018. (Yonhap)

Jeju Island has been the epicenter of the refugee issue in South Korea and this weekend protesters faced off against each other in Seoul.  However, judging by the size of the protests few people apparently cared enough about this issue to join the protesters:

Two contrasting rallies, in support of and opposition to the Refugee Act, took place across from each other in Jongno in central Seoul on Sunday. The movements came two days after the Justice Ministry granted one-year humanitarian stay permits to 23 Yemeni asylum seekers.

Under the rain, some 200 rallygoers demanded the government grant greater legal refugee status to more asylum seekers, and called for efforts to reduce discriminations against asylum seekers, in front of Bosingak.

Just across the road, some 300 protesters gathered in front of Jongno Tower to chant for the abolishment of the Refugee Act, and chanted that the government should protect the interests of Koreans.  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link.

I met a group of NK defectors from SK recently. Asked whether I should refer them as "defectors" or "new settlers" they said smiling: "freed people." https://t.co/I3nupZ52Yu

— North Korea & Human Rights (@rghkim) August 19, 2018

These deportations and arrest will likely give critics support for not admitting anymore refugees into South Korea:

Six migrant workers have been deported this year over allegations they supported international terrorist groups.

This followed a joint operation by South Korea’s top law enforcers.

Police, prosecutors, the national intelligence service and the justice ministry discovered evidence that the suspects endorsed the terrorist groups “beyond curiosity” and shared information about them with others.

The information came to light in a report revealed during the national anti-terror committee’s regular meeting at the Seoul Government Complex on Monday. Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon presided over it.

Another report said a Syrian migrant worker was arrested in Incheon for inciting co-workers to join extreme Islamic terrorist group ISIS. The Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency’s international criminal investigation bureau arrested the man, 33, for showing ISIS promotional video clips to the workers and encouraging them to join it. The authority sent his case to prosecutors early this month.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but a flood of Muslim refugees into Jeju Island from mostly Yemen has caused terrorism fears to grow in South Korea in recent months.

It didn’t take long for the North Koreans to use the proposed family unions as leverage against the South Korean government:

North Korea’s state-run media released a string of articles on Friday that criticized the South Korean government, hinting that planned reunions for families split between the two nations could be canceled. An editorial in the official state newspaper of the North Korean ruling party, Rodong Sinmun, argued that South Korea had been exaggerating its role in denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington. South Korea’s role in the talks does “not even amount to that of an assistant,” the editorial stated. The same article described comments made by South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Singapore last week as “presumptuous” and “flippant.”  [Washington Post]

You can read more at the link, but it appears the North Koreans are trying to put the ROK government back in its place as being subservient to the Kim regime with the denuclearization talks solely between the US and North Korea.

Here is the main reason they are threatening the cancelation of the family reunions:

In another attack against the Moon administration, Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean propaganda website, urged it to repatriate a dozen North Korean restaurant workers who came to the South in 2016.

The 12 had worked at a North Korean restaurant in China. Pyongyang claims they were abducted by South Korean authorities. The South has said the workers defected of their own free will.

Uriminzokkiri said there could be an “obstacle” in the planned reunion of families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War next month if the workers are not returned.

It lashed out at Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon by name, accusing him of “siding with” the former government which it said plotted the workers’ defection. [Reuters]

I think even for a left wing administration like President Moon’s, this will be politically very difficult to do.  Could you imagine the backlash of forcibly removing these defectors from South Korea and handing them over to the Kim regime?