Coalition urges UN to check on NK defectors in China

The International Parliamentarians’ Coalition for North Korean Refugees and Human Rights requested Monday that the U.N. dispatch inspectors to China to check human rights abuses of North Korean defectors living there.

The coalition also urged the world body to recognize the presence of political concentration camps in North Korea and demand their closure to Pyongyang.

In its eight general meeting with 60 countries attending, including South Korea, the U.S., Japan, Australia and Kenya, the human rights agency in Washington signed a joint statement on 11 provisions. The statement urged China, a country that signed a treaty on the legal status of poor people and international children’s human rights, to suspend the arrest and deportation of children whose North Korean parents fled their country for China, especially those without parents, and properly support and protect them.

The coalition also urged the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to inspect the status of North Korean defectors in China, and dispatch an inspector to China to check human rights abuses involving the deportation of defectors living in China. It also requested that defectors temporarily staying in a third country before heading to South Korea not be punished so that they can safely arrive in the South.

The meeting was attended by lawmakers from South Korea`s ruling Grand National Party, Cha Myeong-jin, Shin Ji-ho and Lee Eun-jae, U.S. Congressman Ed Royce, who is also co-chairman of the coalition, and fellow Congressmen Frank Wolf and James McGovern.

Members from Japan, Canada, Mongolia and Nepal and aide to a member of the European Commission also took part in the meeting.

mickey@donga.com