Sample Letter to Chinese Government Officials
My apologies for the small type, to conserve space. Snail mail addresses, names, and phone numbers here.
cc: BeijingWebcomments@state.gov
Your Excellency,
I am writing to you to express my concern about the Chinese government’s arrest of 65 North Korean refugees and two South Koreans near Beijing on October 26th. Among those arrested were 11 teenagers and one person over 70 years of age. I respectfully ask that your government abide by the terms of the 1951 U.N. Convention on Refugees and send all 67 of those arrested to South Korea at the earliest date possible.
The expulsion of such a refugee shall be only in pursuance of a decision reached in accordance with due process of law. Except where compelling reasons of national security otherwise require, the refugee shall be allowed to submit evidence to clear himself, and to appeal to and be represented for the purpose before competent authority or a person or persons specially designated by the competent authority.
This article also requires your government to give refugees a reasonable amount of time to seek legal admission into another country. Article 33 states that–
No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
China thus has an obligation to allow these refugees to freely state the reasons why they are seeking refuge and permit them to apply to travel to South Korea.
The argument that North Koreans are economic migrants is inapplicable because North Korea specifically uses the deprivation of food as a tool of political discrimination and oppression against members of particular families and social groups. I refer you to Amnesty International’s recent report, entitled, “Starved of Rights.”
North Korean refugees who are repatriated to their country of origin are usually sent to concentration camps. This case of of particular concern because these 65 North Koreans were caught in the company of South Korean activists. Such refugees normally face much harsher treatment, which may include immediate execution or placement in a camp where they will be worked or starved to death. If any of the refugee women are pregnant, the North Koreans will perform forced abortions on them. It is also the North Koreans’ practice to murder any prisoners’ babies that are born alive. There is abundant evidence to show that these North Koreans face certain persecution and probable death if your government repatriates them to North Korea in violation of Article 33.
I respectfully urge you to carry out your nation’s obligations under international law by permitting all of the detained persons a free choice to apply to travel to South Korea, which considers them citizens of its own country and would therefore accept them immediately.