Rights groups call for UN action to protect North Korean escapees in China

This March file photo, taken in the Chinese city of Dandong, shows two bridges connecting North Korea and China. Human rights groups on Friday called for the OHCHR to take action to protect North Korean refugees in China as North Korea is expected to lift COVID-19 border restrictions to resume Beijing's forcible repatriation of escapees. Korea Times photo by Cho Young-bin

OHCHR accused of keeping silent on repatriation issue for sake of Beijing

By Jung Min-ho

Human rights activists called for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to take immediate action to protect North Korean refugees in China amid signs of the resumption of Beijing's forcible repatriation of escapees.

In a joint statement, Friday, Transitional Justice Working Group and 11 other groups said the lives of as many as 2,000 North Koreans are now at stake as Pyongyang is expected to lift its COVID-19 border restrictions soon ahead of the Hangzhou Asian Games, which are scheduled to take place from Sept. 23 to Oct. 8.

In a serious accusation, the groups also claimed that the OHCHR remains deliberately silent on the issue out of fear of irritating Beijing.

"It is important to hold China accountable for these grave human rights violations … This is particularly urgent as North Korea may lift the self-imposed COVID-19 border restrictions ahead of the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games," the statement said.

"Given this background, the OHCHR's silence on China's grave human rights violations against North Korean refugees and the aiding and abetting of crimes against humanity in North Korea through arbitrary detention and forcible repatriation is difficult to understand or justify."

According to the groups, the OHCHR's Seoul office has yet to officially express its concerns about the looming resumption of deportations, and has not provided a reason for its refusal to send officials to events organized for the issue.

Speaking to The Korea Times, a rights advocate said that OHCHR Seoul officials' reluctance could be a direct result of the caution being taken toward China within its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, where the U.N. body went through a tense period with Beijing after its 2022 report on rights issues in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The advocate said that the OHCHR's reports on the repatriation issue in recent years have shown a problematic pattern, in which it avoids mentioning China by name directly.

"The most recent 2023 report takes the OHCHR's reluctance to name China to a new level," the statement said. "According to the OHCHR, 'Interviewees who had been trafficked into neighboring countries reported living in fear that if their origins were discovered, they would be repatriated and imprisoned.' It is not difficult to see that 'the neighboring state' is the OHCHR's jargon for China."

The fate awaiting those deported by China is no secret: years of incarceration in political prison camps, torture or worse. Seoul has long asked Beijing to give them the option of returning to North Korea or allowing them to head to the South. Despite its diplomatic efforts, however, Beijing has maintained the policy of treating North Koreans crossing into China as illegal migrants rather than refugees.

In a message to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, the groups called on him to hold China accountable for its human rights violations as he promised to do during his speech marking the 30th anniversary of the World Conference on Human Rights in June.

"You proclaimed that 'We have championed the rights of children, of indigenous peoples, of minorities, of older people, of people with disabilities as well as of migrants and refugees. All while holding the world's most powerful to account,'" the statement said.

"(The) OHCHR must end the blatant, casual politicization of the issue if it is to champion the rights of North Korean escapees facing arbitrary detention, human trafficking, deportation and other grave violations and abuses in China."

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