U.S. group files complaint with Thailand for crackdown on N. Korean refugees

Posted on : 2007-01-06 15:20 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST

A coalition of some 60 human rights groups based in the United States this week filed a complaint with the Thai Embassy in the United States, protesting the Thai government's recent crackdowns on North Korean defectors in the South Asian country, the head of the coalition said Saturday.

Suzanne Scholte, chairwoman of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, also urged others to "send similar appeals to the Thai ambassadors in their respective countries." Scholte also heads a Washington-based congressional study group, the Defense Forum Foundation.

In a letter sent Friday (Washington time) to Bangkok's top envoy to Washington, Virasakdi Futrakul, the group claimed the situation facing North Korean refugees in Thailand has "gone tragic" since last August.

The group said the Thai government was "changing its once humanitarian policy" and beginning to "deter and push back these refugees seeking safety in Thailand."

It also claimed the Thai government was seeking to "collude with Chinese authorities in exposing the network rescuing" North Korean refugees.

"Your change in policy will lead to tragic suffering and potential death for innocent refugees, mostly women and children, and for humanitarian rescuers," the letter said.

"We urge you to heed the findings of your own esteemed citizen and distinguished scholar, Vitit Muntarbhorn, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, who has defined these North Koreans as 'refugees sur place' because the very act of their leaving North Korea is a criminal offense punishable by death," it added.

An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 North Koreans have fled their communist homeland since the mid-1990s, when North Korea suffered a nationwide famine, leaving as many as two million people dead.

Most of North Korean defectors cross the border to neighboring China, but are often forced to seek ways to a third country as Beijing, a close ally of Pyongyang, does not recognize them as refugees and regularly rounds up defectors and repatriates them to the North, where they face severe punishments.

Thailand used to provide a safe passage to North Koreans en route to South Korea, but Bangkok recently began cracking down on North Korean defectors, calling them illegal immigrants.

Seoul, Jan. 6 (Yonhap News)