TREATMENT UPON DEPORTATIONPunishment Of A Christian Woman The frequency of the arrest and deportation of North Koreans in China is impossible to determine with any certainty. More than one-third of the North Koreans that Refugees International (RI) interviewed in Yanbian had been arrested and deported at least once, and fourteen percent had been arrested and deported multiple times. But it is impossible to draw any conclusions from these figures because of the small sample size and, more importantly, because only those strong and determined enough to survive their incarceration in North Korea and make it back into China were available to be interviewed. We were talking only to the survivors of a cruel system. When the Chinese police arrest North Koreans, they take them to a prison near the Tumen border crossing to prepare the prisoners for their official handover to the North Korean authorities. The North Koreans are especially concerned with any individuals who may have met with South Koreans, especially for the purpose of emigrating to South Korea, or met with Christian missionaries, especially for the purpose of returning to North Korea to preach the gospel clandestinely. North Koreans deported from China are interrogated for up to a week at the border, before being assigned to a prison or labor training center depending on the severity of their crime in the eyes of the North Korean border officials. As noted above, leaving the country without permission is illegal under the North Korean criminal code, with those deemed minor offenders subject to imprisonment in labor training centers for up to three years and traitors subject to terms of at least seven years, or execution in extreme cases. RI’s interviews in Yanbian suggest, however, that at some point during the famine and its aftermath, the North Korean authorities made a decision to give lesser sentences to people who were obviously going to China to ensure their own survival and that of their families. In effect they recognized that migration to China was a safety valve for the North Korean system. The standard sentence for such individuals seems to have been reduced to fewer than six months in a labor training center at the county level close to the person’s legal residence at the time of his or her departure from North Korea.24 Conditions in the labor training centers are harsh. With increasing movement between North Korea and China, and increasing numbers of arrests, the centers are crowded. One 32-year-old man told RI that 40 prisoners lived in a room about five square meters. Prisoners were expected to sleep while kneeling, and any movement or deviation was punished.25 Depending on the center, rations consist of corn gruel or soup with a bit of cabbage, three times per day. The work consists of hard labor such as digging canals and constructing roads. In the evening the prisoners are subjected to political lectures. If the group consists primarily of people arrested in China, the emphasis is on loyalty to North Korea and the importance of never returning to China. One consistent aspect of RI’s interviews on conditions in the labor training centers is the policy of releasing prisoners when they become ill. Evidently, once a prisoner becomes sick, the authorities want no part of the person, as no medical care is available and they don’t want the prisoner to die in the labor training center. A 37-year-old woman from Onsong, who was arrested and deported three times over a one-year period, said that her husband, who had been arrested separately when he tried to leave North Korea a third time, died three days after being released from a labor training center. After her third arrest she was able to convince the guards to release her and her daughter so that they could go see her husband’s grave. They fled immediately to China.26 Harsher penalties are reserved for those known to have met with foreigners or converted to Christianity with the intention of becoming missionaries themselves inside North Korea. RI has not yet interviewed anyone with knowledge of specific executions for these offenses, although the first person RI interviewed in Yanbian, a 33-year-old man from Hoeryung, said that “for meeting with foreigners a person could be sentenced to death. If someone gets caught with Bibles he or she will be sentenced to death.” He himself was leaving that evening to smuggle Bibles back into North Korea.27 The U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea has documented eight eyewitness or first hand accounts of forced abortions or infanticide affecting pregnant women deportees.28 The rationale is that the babies, being of mixed Chinese-Korean ancestry, are a living symbol of the mother’s betrayal of her homeland, and therefore must be killed. Among the horrific stories is that of a 66-year-old grandmother who, while detained in the Provincial Detention Center in South Sinuiju in January 2000, helped deliver seven babies who were killed by being buried alive soon after birth. A doctor explained to her that “since North Korea was short on food, the country should not have to feed the children of foreign fathers.”29 In April 2000 a 17-year-old woman from Musan, who first crossed into China in 1998, was caught along with thirteen others in the midst of Bible study. She was deported and given a sentence of one year, later commuted to ten months. When the Chinese deported her, they provided North Korean officials with documents detailing how she was caught in Bible study and had met South Koreans. Her interrogations focused especially on her Christian faith. She spent a total of ten months in two different National Security Jails. Rather than sending her to a labor training center, the focus was on psychological punishment. In both prisons she had to sit perfectly still all day. She was not allowed to speak at all. In the second prison there was a video camera and she believed the room was bugged. Male prisoners were beaten, but the women were not. Because she was only 17, the prison guards felt sorry for her. Despite possibly being treated more leniently, she was bitter about her time in prison. “I was treated worse than a dog. I would rather die than go there again.” During her time in jail she had two trials: a pre-trial to confirm the validity of the documents provided by the Chinese, and a second trial. She was released after the second trial. Most of the women were released. Two people from her group died in jail. She does not know the fate of the teachers from her Bible study. Presumably they received a harsher sentence, but she does not know.23 |
Executive Summary Introduction The Scope of the Problem The Motivation for Leaving The Situation in China Treatment Upon Deportation The Case for Refugee Status for North Koreans in China Protection for North Koreans in China South Korean Policy United States Policy and the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 Recommendations ----------- Notes Appendix: Interviews between Refugees International and North Korean Refugees Acknowledgments |
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Acts of Betrayal: Treatment Upon Deportation
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