Ocean County Leader

While chairing a congressional hearing on June 13, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), called on United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres to use his influence to dissuade the Chinese government from forcibly repatriating an estimated 2,000 North Korean refugees who could face torture, sexual assault, forced abortion, forced labor, and possible execution upon their return.

            “Beijing must not be complicit in the plight of North Korean refugees in China who are under imminent danger of repatriation,” said Smith, who has chaired numerous congressional hearings on North Korean human rights abuses and has authored legislation to revoke China's Permanent Normal Trade Relations status unless there are substantial and sustained improvements in human rights—including how it treats refugees within its borders.

            “These refugees are not mere statistics, they are individuals with inherent rights, hopes, dreams, and aspirations,” said Smith, who noted that the CECC is planning to issue a standalone report on the plight of North Korean refugees in China this year in addition to its annual report on the issue.

            Smith, who raised the issue directly with Secretary-General Guterres in an April meeting, said the UN is “well-positioned to use its influence, given how much the Chinese government seeks validation from, and indeed seeks to influence, the United Nations system.”

            Smith’s hearing comes as North Korea is poised to lift its COVID-19 imposed border closure policy as early as this summer, which would pave the way for the forced repatriation of North Korean refugees reportedly being held in detention centers near the China-North Korea border.

            The CECC hearing—entitled “North Korean Refugees and the Imminent Danger of Forced Repatriation from China”—featured compelling expert testimony from Ambassador Robert King, Former Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues; Ambassador Jung-Hoon Lee, Dean of Yonsei University’s Graduate School of International Studies; Ethan Hee-Seok Shin, Legal Analyst at the Transitional Justice Working Group; and Hanna Song, Director of International Cooperation at the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights.

             “We need to continue the effort to press the Chinese because these people are being denied their free choice of where they want to go, and they are being held in inhumane conditions in China,” said Ambassador King. “If they are returned to North Korea, the North Koreans will send them to prison, and some of them will not survive the imprisonment there.”

            “The legal tools are there for the UNHCR to do more for the North Korean defectors,” said Jung-Hoon Lee, Former South Korean Ambassador-at-Large for North Korean Human Rights. “The forcible repatriation of North Koreans seeking refuge in China is a blatant breach of Beijing’s obligations under the 1951 UN Convention Related to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.”

            “The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been conspicuously silent and absent on the North Korean refugee issue since 2013,” said Ethan Hee-Seok Shin. “The UNHCR needs to play a more active role for the North Korean refugees in China as it once did in the past.”

            “It is imperative that the United States government and the international community take every possible measure to prevent the forced repatriation of North Korean refugees and provide them with the necessary protection they urgently require,” said Hanna Song, who showed before-and-after satellite images of expanded detention facilities in China with refugees who face forced repatriation.

Original source can be found here