Category: North Korean refugee

North Korea, slave state of the 21st Century

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The U.S. Republican Party adopted its new policy platform, calling North Korea a ‘slave state’, on July 18, the opening day of the party’s national convention. Indeed, the majority of the people in the communist country live like slaves owned by the Kim family without fundamental rights as human beings.

I experienced the life of a [North Korean] slave when I was working in Kuwait as a foreign worker, so I welcome the recent designation, albeit belated. … I worked on a residential construction site in Umm al Hayman, where an abandoned two-story school was used as lodging for North Korean workers. There were just about 20 shabby beds in each classroom and everything was in poor condition. The lodging was surrounded by a 2m-high barbed-wire fence, which was erected at the request of North Korean authorities to prevent any runaway.

We were forced to work 15 hours a day from 7 a.m. to midnight, excluding lunch and dinner breaks, under direct sunlight of the desert and with searchlight at light. What kept me going in the harsh work conditions, though, was beef soup offered with steamed rice two or three times a week. Bread was offered for lunch and noodles were offered for dinner, but the amount was not sufficient. Beef was a highly valuable food for ordinary people in North Korea, so we felt that we were privileged to eat beef soup.

We worked hard, expecting to earn $120 of the promised monthly pay and send it to family members at home. However, we could not receive any money even after a few months of labor. The manager responded to the angry workers by saying “The company is in financial trouble” or “There is no order from the party to give you a pay”. Upset, the workers criticized the ‘company’, but no one blamed the ‘Workers Party’ of Pyongyang. They did not and could not dispraise the party, because they knew that the party was equal to the supreme leader and they were also afraid of further trouble.

[Read Rim Il’s full OpEdNews article]

North Korean math whiz who defected in Hong Kong

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The North Korean defector who mysteriously snuck away during an international mathematics contest in Hong Kong is believed to be Jong Yol Ri, a three-time silver medalist at the annual competition, the South China Morning Post has learnt.

A photo of Jong was sent to a Whatsapp chat group of some 100 university students helping at the 57th International Mathematical Olympiad a day after the team of six North Korean students were last seen at the event’s closing ceremony. They were asked to look for the math whiz. No one responded to the message, the source said.

CCTV footage from the university is understood to show a student leaving the campus alone.

It is believed that subsequently, a defector sought refuge at the local South Korean Consulate General, more than 20km away.The Consulate General remained tight-lipped, saying it was the South Korean government’s position that it would not confirm anything about the defector.

The North Korean delegation left with one member short and flew back to Pyongyang via the mainland on July 19.

[South China Morning Post]

Vetted North Korean student defects in Hong Kong

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A North Korean student in Hong Kong is seeking asylum in the city. A 18-year-old male student, who was not identified, took refuge at the South Korean consulate in Hong Kong, according to local newspaper Ming Pao.

The student was part of an official delegation in Hong Kong this month for the International Mathematical Olympiad at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).

Walk-in defections are relatively common at South Korean missions in South-East Asian countries which are the target destination for North Koreans escaping their country through China.

But defections by members of official delegations travelling abroad are rare, because they are carefully vetted before being granted exit visas and closely monitored during their stay overseas.

[AFP]

A rough life as a North Korean refugee

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North Korean defectors who make it across the border to China find they have no rights and cannot legally find jobs in China, so they must scrape by on the margins of society — which is still less risky than trying to get out of China. Some estimates suggest that there are hundreds of thousands of North Koreans living this way in China.

Most defectors simply want to pass through China and start a new life in South Korea or another country that will provide them with legal protection.

For those defectors from North Korea who reach South Korea, they automatically become South Korean citizens after a mandatory three-month transition that is part debriefing, part re-education.

On the positive side, refugees received a few thousand dollars to start their new lives and learned skills most people take for granted: grocery shopping or using an ATM.

On the flip side, most North Korean defectors in the South stand out. They have distinct accents, and are often shorter and slighter with darker, sallow skin from years of malnutrition. It’s hard to avoid South Koreans’ prejudice and suspicions that North Koreans are spies.

North Korean refugees speak at Seoul University

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A conference hosted at the Seoul University of Foreign Studies will feature North Korean refugees who will share their stories at a panel event with scholars, activists and volunteers.

“We have three different aims: to raise awareness about North Korean issues, given an opportunity for refugees to practice their speech skills in front of a live audience, and inspire people to get involved,” Teach North Korean Refugees (TNKR} co-founder Casey Lartigue said. “We have been doing this for a little more than three years and we have matched 250 refugees with about 440 volunteers,” Lartigue said.

There are two aspects to the program. Track one focuses on teaching English and track two is for refugees who want to engage in public speaking.

[The Korea Herald]

North Korean defectors have never even heard of human rights

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After graduating from middle school in 1979, I entered the North Korean military and after training I served for 11 years, and later became a farmer. In the early 1990s, life in rural areas was much better for workers than in the city. They had access to food distribution from farms, small plots of land and vegetable gardens. By 1995 though the food shortage started to affect us.

From 1996, the amount of food being distributed halved. It decreased by another 30% by 1997, and many died of hunger in rural areas. The food shortage hit my family in 1997. My mother, my wife, and my son died of hunger that winter. Everyone but one son.

I decided to escape North Korea so that he could live. I set off for the Tumen River with my young son in April 1998. There were police officers everywhere, sentries checking every road, but I found a way to cross over to China.  Finding work was hard because I had a young child. I would work but only for food.

Despite the hardships, I tried to listen to South Korean broadcasts every night.  The presenters were knowledgeable about the reality of North Korea. This is when I realized South Korea was not what I thought it would be. I decided to try to get there. I felt that both of us would die if we got caught, so I decided to try and get to South Korea first and left my son in the hands of a Korean Chinese person. I said goodbye to my son in May 1999.

The winter journey through the Mongolian desert was so tough that it amazes me even now that I was able to cross it. I had to survive in order to see my son again. I was determined.

I settled in South Korea in 2000. The government gave me $9,300 as a settlement fee and I used it to look for my child. I found him in March 2001 and planned to bring him to South Korea.

A group of people traveled with my son, but the guide was caught by a Chinese officer and the group dispersed. My son got left by himself in the desert and died on my birthday. I always feel guilty for not giving him a better life.

[Excerpts of an article in The Guardian, by Ryu Ki-ho]

North Korean defectors file petition on behalf of imprisoned families

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North Korean defectors have filed a petition in a South Korean court, requesting protection for imprisoned family members in the North.

Choi Hyun-joon, a defector and founder of activist group Unification Future Solidarity, submitted a petition to Seoul’s Central District Court, filed on behalf of six defectors in the South who have 20 family members in North Korean prison camps.

According to the defectors, the South Korean constitution recognizes North Korea as part of South Korean territory, and North Koreans are recognized as South Korean citizens. And their human rights need to be protected, the activists say.

North Korea is sensitive to international criticism of its human rights record and has called statements on the country’s political prison camps, forced labor and summary executions “outright lies.”

[UPI]

More on North Korean defector who showed up in Japan

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A man claiming to be a North Korean citizen was found wandering around the Japanese port town of Senzaki this weekend, police told CNN.

According to a report by CNN affiliate NHK, the man traveled from North Korea across the Sea of Japan by boat, saying “the man was drenched (in water) when police took him into custody.” Officials from Yamaguchi Prefecture said the man was interviewed by police.

The man, believed to be in his twenties, told police that he left Chongjin, the capital of North Korea’s Hamgyong Province, on Friday night in a wooden boat, broadcaster NHK reported. He claimed to have jumped from the boat into the sea with a plastic container and drifted to Senzaki by Saturday morning.

The man said he was fleeing North Korea because he was being chased by police after he was caught watching South Korean videos, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported.

[CNN]

North Korean defectors travel to US to share their story

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Yu Sunhui calmly recounted how she escaped North Korea by train, jumping off often to avoid the checkpoints. She had to swim across a river to China, where she was sold to human traffickers before she managed to make her way to South Korea in 2010.

Yu spoke through an interpreter after arriving Sunday in San Francisco as part of a delegation of North Korean defectors visiting the Bay Area. The visit, organized by the Hometown Mission Association for North Korea in Seattle and Korean Churches Council of San Francisco, includes 29 refugees, most of whom are living in the South Korean capital of Seoul.

Yu, 59, a former lieutenant in the North Korean military, recently obtained a green card and moved to Southern California, where she hopes to help other North Korean refugees better adjust to life in this country. She said she would like Americans to better understand North Korea. North Koreans are taught the United States is the “ultimate enemy,” but Yu described her experiences with Americans as “exactly the opposite of the way we were brainwashed.”

This is the third delegation Seattle Pastor John Yoon, who escaped North Korea in 1950 and has been living in the U.S. for 36 years, has arranged to help Americans better understand the plight of North Koreans. Yoon said he wants North Korean refugees who now have the freedom to travel to learn about the United States, and he wants the world to better understand the abuses that North Koreans are undergoing at the hands of the government.

[San Francisco Chronicle]

Japanese police interrogate North Korean defector

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Japan police on Sunday began the interrogation of a man who claimed he jumped from a North Korean ship and swam ashore clinging to a plastic container, the BBC reported.

According to officials, the man was carrying no proof of identity when he was found in the city of Nagato prefecture on Saturday.

Police are expected to hand him over to immigration officials who will decide whether he is a genuine defector, the BBC noted.

In 2011, nine North Koreans were picked up by the Japanese Coast Guard after spending five days at sea.

[BBC]