13 August 2024 – GENEVA – Switzerland | “We express our utmost concern for the risk of irreparable damage to the physical and psychological integrity of the aforementioned individuals, as well as the serious risk of grave human rights violations,” the experts write regarding the North Korean refugees repatriated from China to North Korea in September-October 2023 last year.
Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, draws attention to the UN Communication on X: “the letter I joined to the Government of the #DPRK concerning serious human rights violations, including gender-based violence, and the risk of torture and extrajudicial killings of individuals that were forcibly repatriated by China to the DPRK is now public.” The UN Communication follows an earlier urgent action petition by the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances sent in September 2023. The response to the initial communication of concern was met by complete denial by the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK).
Jubilee Campaign decries the refoulement of North Korean refugees by China, including China’s forced repatriation of North Korean refugees in September and October 2023. Members of North Korea Freedom Coalition joined in the global call on Xi Jinping to stop repatriating North Korean refugees.
DPRK state policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic put a temporary halt on China’s record of forcible repatriations of North Korean refugees to North Korea when they closed their borders with China. China’s forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees restarted, with the September-October 2023 mass repatriations of North Korean refugees from China. These repatriations mark the first documented refoulement since the outbreak of the pandemic, and a worrying signal that China will pick up its record of violating the principle of non-refoulement by forcing North Korean refugees back to the country they fled from, where they risk torture, inhumane treatment, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killing.
“they were searched, interrogated and beaten,”
– UN experts describe the reports received regarding the treatment of North Korean refugees forcibly repatriated to North Korea in September – October 2023.
While the government of China tried to get the September-October 2023 repatriations of North Koreans done quietly, the news of the refoulements was documented and traced, resulting in strong and vocal action by the UN Experts and UN member states, Jason West, Vice-Chairman with the North Korea Freedom Coalition describes. As China is a member of two critical UN bodies: the UN Security Council and the UN Human Rights Council, it has an even greater burden to uphold its human rights commitments; which makes its violations of a jus cogens norm [Article 3 Convention Against Torture] even more glaring.
While information in and out of North Korea is heavily restricted by the government of the DPRK, the UN experts were able to receive information from sources on the ground in addition to corroborating information from former prisoners of conscience who escaped North Korea. The UN experts report that the repatriated individuals were initially detained in pre-trial detention centres by the Ministry of State Security, “where they were searched, interrogated and beaten.” The communication describes how women face “strip and invasive body searches […] which constitutes gender-based violence, including torture in some cases.” It also describes how female detainees, which account for more than half of the North Koreans refouled by China, were sometimes ordered to “squat naked and jump repeatedly to check whether they had hidden items in their body cavities.” These descriptions match previous reporting on the treatment by North Korean officials of North Korean refugee women refouled to the country. “North Korea is like a security prison when it comes to information,” Jason West, Vice-Chairman of the North Korean Freedom Coalition, describes, “information is banned officially, but the barriers are porous and information and supplies have a way of getting in and out.”
Jubilee Campaign has raised concerns with the DPRK’s torture and maltreatment of repatriated North Korean refugees with various UN bodies consistently, in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024; noting specifically how women of faith experience “a magnification of customary gender-based violence in detention if they do have a religious identity [as a result of North Korea’s view on religion generally].” The communication by the UN experts also notes that the aims of the initial interrogations by the North Korean authorities of the refugees – “the vast majority of whom are women” – was to: “establish the reasons why the individuals left the country, their activities abroad, the length of stay, their connections with the Republic of Korea and religious groups and identifying anyone who helped them leave the country.”
In addition to describing the circumstances and the current concerns with the well-being of the repatriated North Korean refugees, including mention of individuals cases, the UN Communication requests clarification on various points. The allegation letter asks for specifics regarding whereabouts of a handful of named detainees and requests clarification regarding the protection of women in detention from “torture and other forms of ill-treatment,” and requests that the DPRK guarantee that families and legal representatives of all “detainees particularly in kwansilo” are informed of their fate and whereabouts.
The 10-page allegation letter by the UN experts, receives a note of receipt by the DPRK Mission in Geneva. The June 2024 response does not answer any of the questions of the Special Rapporteurs and instead, “categorically denies and rejects” the full contents of the letter. The DPRK, in its five-paragraph response, seems to redefine human rights referring to the contents of the allegation letter as having “no relevance with genuine promotion of human rights and protection of human rights,” [our emphasis]. It also hints at its own priorities, referring to the expressed concern of the repatriated refugees as “hostile forces to tarnish the dignified image of socialist system of the DPRK,” and noting it is a country and system which: “enjoys the absolute trust and support of its entire people.” The DPRK’s response solidifies the threats faced by those who flee North Korea and are repatriated; they have already put a hole in the “dignified image” of the DPRK by fleeing the country for survival, food and freedom; the DPRK brands them by default as “hostile forces.”
Photo: Jubilee Campaign