Caught at the Border

Testimony confirmed that Christianity was a key factor in the interrogation of repatriated refugees. The admission of contact with Christians in China may result in torture, imprisonment in North Korea’s labyrinth of labor camps or execution. Those who escape such punishment face ongoing surveillance and discrimination.

Protestant Christians are targeted because of their historical connection with U.S. missionaries and their present connection with a vibrant Protestant population in South Korea.

Explaining the official North Korean viewpoint, a former security guard said that the United States was perceived as “controlling one-half of the Korean peninsula” and attempting to “use religion to get the other half.”

Following the years of famine, in 1999 the regime recognized that thousands of citizens had gone to China in search of food. Border security guards may now overlook cases where refugees have accepted merely food or shelter from Korean-Chinese churches. But refugees have also got wiser in recent years; many have learned not to admit to such contact with religion in China.

International Response

The report concludes that North Koreans repatriated to China – particularly those who have any religious connection – have a well-founded fear of persecution, qualifying them for protection under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

“Either they are persons who have a well-founded fear of persecution had they remained in North Korea, or they are refugees because of the place to which they fled,” the report states. “The Chinese government continues to forcibly repatriate North Koreans who have entered China without proper authorization back to North Korea, where they face brutal interrogations, detentions, forced labor, and disappearance into the infamous kwanliso or political penal labor colonies.”

The report reiterates that the freedom to leave one’s country of origin is a right protected by both the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. North Korea is a party to the latter, yet it is illegal to leave North Korea without authorization.

The report calls on the international community to press China to cease repatriating North Korean refugees and provide protection for them as required by the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocols, to which China is a party.

“Policy towards North Korean refugees repatriated to China against their will clearly requires more urgent attention,” the report concludes.

Entitled “A Prison Without Bars,” the USCIRF report by David Hawk updates a previous study, “Thank You Father Kim Il Sung,” released in 2005.

In January, Christian support organization Open Doors released its annual World Watch List of the worst religious persecutors, with North Korea topping the list for the sixth consecutive year.