Tag Archives: Immigration Detention Center
Visit to Bangkok’s Immigrant Detention Center
Although Thailand is not the final destination for North Korean defectors flowing into this country, this flow is currently the largest in the world, outside of China. The numbers have steadily increased over the past several years. According to the Thai government, about 1,000 North Korean defectors were detained here in 2007. From 2008 and after, the Thai government stopped publicly announcing numbers, but my estimation is about 1,500 in 2008 and a bit higher in 2009.
International Fact-finding Mission to Thailand
Memorial shot together with Maisai Immigration vice director and members of Fact Finding Mission in front of Maisai Immigration Police Building.
From February 25 to March 1 of this year, Life Funds for North Korean Refugees was part of an international fact-finding mission to Thailand, the purpose of which was to ascertain the current situation of North Korean refugees in Thailand. To this end, we met with the Bangkok office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the immigration police at Maesai (near the Laos/Thai/Myanmar border), and Thai human rights lawyers, as well as North Korean defectors and some of the activists assisting them in Thailand.