forcedrepatriation

I wanted to throw out a couple of posts on human rights issues; specifically to a cause that is close to my heart.

With the enormous suffering brought on by the "Arduous March" i.e. famine of the 90s, and the totalitarian nature of the current regime in North Korea, an influx of refugees and asylum seekers into China have gradually increased in the last 10 years.

If caught or found by authorities, most are forcibly repatriated back to North Korea where execution or prison camps almost certainly await.

China hopes to placate any possibility of a refugee crisis, and doesn't want to risk upsetting it's unstable nuclear-friendly neighbour.

In doing so, China consistently ignores its obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees, which obliges it to allow the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to consider applications for political asylum from anoyone with a justifiable fear of persecution in his/her homeland.

All in all, the government of China has obligations to provide the UNHCR with unimpeded access to North Korean inside its borders and to enable the UNHCR to determine whether they are refugees and whether they require assistance, consistent with the 1951 United Nations COnvention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, and the 1995 Agreement on the Upgrading of the UNHCR Mission in the People's Republic of China to UNHCR Branch Office in China.

Boiled down, hundreds of thousands of koreans are risking life and limb to gain access to the type of freedom you and I enjoy every waking minute.

I'm researching effective ways to petitiont the Chinese government which I will share later.

Video footage is of a political prison camp for forced repatriates broadcast on South Korean News.