Category Archives: North Korean Refugees
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.
International Protest Day – Sample Letter
Citizens Worldwide Mail Protests
This coming winter, the number of starving North Korean refugees escaping into China is expected to increase, particularly in light of the major flooding in North Korea.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government continues to hunt down and repatriate North Korean refugees, while also arresting humanitarian aid workers. We must persist in our protests against Chinese government actions in order to save the starving North Korean refugees.
December 2 has been set as a day for simultaneous worldwide protest. Here in Japan, LFNKR and other groups involved in the rescue of North Korean refugees will stage a protest in front of the Chinese Embassy in this country.
You can join us by sending protest email to the Chinese embassy in your country.
Here is a list of embassy addresses.
And below is a sample letter you can use as a guideline when writing your own letter.
Sample Letter:
Dear President Hu Jintao,
Please immediately stop arresting and repatriating North Korean refugees.
On Dec. 2, many citizens’ groups in Europe, the USA, South Korea, and Japan are simultaneously doing joint protests in front of Chinese embassies in their countries. The purpose that we share, which surpasses race, religion, and ideology, is to help the lives and human rights of the people seeking to escape from starvation and oppression in North Korea.
It is widely known that yearly tens of thousands of North Korean defectors have escaped into China for more than a decade. The Chinese government, however, has ignored the voices of the international community urging your government to immediately stop repatriating North Korean refugees and to cease arresting the aid workers who try to help them.
It is also widely known that a staggering number of North Korean women are victims of human trafficking in China and that even when they marry Chinese men and bear children, most of them are still arrested and sent back to North Korea. The children born of these marriages often remain without nationality and are therefore denied an education. Your government continues mercilessly depriving those innocent children of their mothers and of their basic human rights.
These are not only inhumane acts, they violate the Refugees Convention to which your country is signatory. This fact seriously dishonors China in the international community.
I urge the Chinese government to:
- immediately stop arresting, detaining or repatriating North Korean refugees and duly to protect them in your country under the supervision of UNHCR or other related international organization, and to assure them safe passage to third countries if they wish to leave.
- immediately free the currently detained North Korean refugees and humanitarian aid workers, and
- grant Chinese nationality to North Korean defectors who marry Chinese citizens as well as to their children, and allow them to settle in China.
(Your name)
Open Letter to Ban Ki-moon
Faxed to ROK Permanent Mission at United Nations
October 19, 2006
His Excellency Ban Ki-moon
United Nations Secretary General-Designate and
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Republic of Korea
c/o The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations
335 East 45th Street
New York, New York 10017
Dear Foreign Minister Ban:
We, the undersigned, are gravely concerned for the human rights of the North Korean people, and we have also been following the news of your selection to be the next United Nations Secretary General with great interest. Allegations that the North Korean government has engaged in large-scale crimes against humanity will be among the U.N.’s great moral challenges in the coming years, and the institution’s moral authority will depend on how it responds to those challenges.
Family of Jailed Humanitarian Worker Struggling
Kim Bong Soon’s Letter
Hello, I am Kim Bong Soon, the wife of Choi Yong-hun.
My husband was arrested by the Chinese police in January 2003 for helping North Korean refugees and was sent to prison for 5 years. Today, he remains confined in the Weifang Prison, Shandong Province, China after serving 46 months of a 60-month sentence. He suffers from worsening chronic diabetes, hypertension, and asthma because of the poor living conditions in the prison.
Home Medical Kits for NK Refugees
Current Activities:
While the rest of the world’s attention is riveted on North Korea and its claims of a successful nuclear test, LFNKR would like to point again to the many North Korean refugees and their continuing need for help.
LFNKR, since its founding in 1998, has provided North Korean refugees with aid, specifically distributing food and clothing through local staff. For more information about LFNKR’s activities during 2006 and its plans for 2007, see these pages:
Suji’s Letter to Her Father
From the Daughter of a Jailed Humanitarian
Hi, I am Suji, the eldest daughter of Choi Yong-hun.
On the first of November 2002, our family of four moved to China, where my younger sister and I began settling in to our new life there. We started school in January 2003. But just two months after our move to China, our father was arrested by the Chinese police for attempting to help some North Korean refugees. I had trouble believing he had been arrested since the media were reporting that he had been helping a group of refugees from North Korea.
LFNKR Activity Report – FY 2005-2006
Annual Report 2006
Activity Report – Fiscal Year 2005-2006
Pressure on the North Korean government by the international community is increasing thanks to greater international awareness of the grave human rights abuses committed by the North Korean government, in addition to the refugee and abductee issues.
Joint Appeal Sent to UNHCR on 7 in Thailand
7 NK Refugees in Thailand Awaiting UNHCR Action
The following appeal was sent to the High Commissioner today jointly by our group (LFNKR) and Tim Peters’ Helping Hands Korea NGO.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Geneva, Switzerland
20 September, 2006
As you probably have been informed, seven North Korean refugees, all women, have presented themselves to the police authorities in Nong Khai, a border town in Northern Thailand, at 09:00 hrs. Monday, 18 September in accordance with Article 31 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which prohibits, among other things, the imposition of penalties on refugees based on their illegal entry to a third country.