LiNK Press Release
On Friday, November 12th at 2:00 pm EST leading human rights groups for North Korea will rally in New York City and Los Angeles in front of the permanent Chinese mission to the UN and the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, at the second rally in two weeks organized by Liberation in North Korea (LiNK). They will be protesting China’s arrest and repatriation of 70 North Korean refugees, 62 who were arrested on October 26 at safe houses near Beijing, along with another eight North Koreans who failed to gain entry into the South Korea Consulate in Beijing on October 25. Activists nationwide will also coordinate a simultaneous email, fax and telephone protest campaign to the Chinese diplomatic officials in the US.
Liberation in North Korea (www.linkglobal.org), a nationwide movement that includes several thousand American college students and professionals, will be joined by a coalition of leading American and South Korean organizations to protest China’s treatment of internationally recognized refugees, and its repatriation of the 62 to North Korea, despite international pressures.
These 62 North Korean refugees will certainly be imprisoned, and likely tortured or executed. The refugees were reportedly planning to seek asylum in a foreign embassy in Beijing. Intent to defect and contact with South Koreans are considered severe treasonous crimes in North Korea, punishable by execution or detention in a forced-labor camp. Defection itself is a crime punishable by death according to North Korean law. China’s forcible repatriation of these 62 North Koreans. China has in the recent years repeatedly and blatantly violated refugee conventions by forcibly repatriating thousands of refugees to North Korea. (China is a signatory member of the 1951 U.N. Convention on Refugees)
China has also imprisoned foreign humanitarian aid workers. In the most recent public statement, the Chinese foreign ministry referred to these aid workers as “snake-heads” and warned of grave punishment for the two South Korean activists in custody, whose fates remain unknown. These activists are members of a South Korean human rights group, the Democracy Network Against the North Korean Gulag (NKGulag). Their work, sheltering refugees and providing humanitarian aid, is protected by UN mandates that safeguard human rights defenders.
China cannot avoid international scrutiny for her treatment of North Koreans and their human rights defenders. On November 12, 2004, we ask that those of conscience voice their outrage at this grave and tragic injustice.
Protests:
Friday, November 12, 2:00 pm [U.S. Eastern Standard Time]
Chinese Permanent Mission to the UN
350 East 35th Street, New York, NY 10016
Friday, November 12, 11:00 am [U.S. Pacific Standard Time]
Chinese Consulate Los Angeles
443 Shatto Place, Los Angeles, CA 90020
Virtual World-Wide Protest:
2:00 pm [U.S. Eastern Standard Time]
11:00 am [U.S. Western Standard Time]
Information: 917.923.5950
www.linkglobal.org
www.xanga.com/linkorea
adrian@linkglobal.org