Chinese Government Forcefully Extradited 73 North Korean Defectors

It was reported yesterday that the Chinese government forcefully extradited 11 North Korean defectors around November 2, who were arrested by the police while trying to enter the consulate of the Korean embassy in China on October 25.

The act is expected to be criticized by the international community as “anti-humanitarian” as it was a unilateral measure which ignored the free will of the North Korean defectors who wanted to go to Korea. It is also expected that the Korean government will have to assume the responsibility because it did not serve a due role during the extradition process.

It was also known that the Chinese government extradited 62 North Korean defectors who were arrested in two houses in Tongzhou, Beijing on October 26 to Sinuiju, North Korea via Dandong, a Chinese city near the border of North Korea, around November 6 or 7. As a result, the number of recent forced extraditions of North Korean defectors amounts to 73.

A well-informed diplomat in Beijing commented, “Such a massive forced extradition to North Korea seems to be a result of the Chinese government’s policy to take strong measures to intercept ‘organized desertions’ into foreign legations or foreign schools led by support groups of North Korean defectors and brokers.”

As the arrested North Korean defectors were forcefully extradited to North Korea, the level of legal measures against Kim Hong-gyun (41) and Lee Soo-chul (47), who were arrested with the defectors on the spot in Tongzhou and belong to the group called the Democracy Network against the North Korean Gulag, is expected to rise.

Yoo-Seong Hwang Hyong-gwon Pu yshwang@donga.com bookum90@donga.com