Ethnic Korean from China granted refugee status

Posted on : 2012-08-23 11:40 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Court recognizes claim of severe punishment in China for helping NK defectors

By Park Tae-woo, staff reporter
A court granted refugee status to an ethnic Korean from China who said she faced persecution if she returns to China because of her efforts to aid North Korean defectors.
The decision is unusual: only seven Chinese nationals have been recognized as refugees over the past decade, due to Seoul’s concerns about frictions with Beijing. The court explicitly accepted China’s strict punishment of activities to aid defectors as grounds for granting refugee status.
Seoul Administrative Court, under judge Jin Chang-su, announced on August 22 that it had ruled in favor of the plaintiff, a 38-year-old ethnic Korean and Chinese national identified by the surname Li, in her suit against the chief of the Seoul Immigration Office. Li was requesting that her denial of refugee status be overturned. The court said that Li’s explanation on how she arrived in South Korea was “consistent.”
“In our judgment, while she did not actively resist the Chinese government’s policy of forcibly repatriating North Korean defectors, the very act of her aiding defectors went against Chinese government policy,” the court explained.
“Given the strong possibility that she will face severe criminal punishment if she returns to China after aiding North Korean defectors, Li’s case corresponds to one of the grounds for recognizing refugee status, namely ‘sufficiently grounded fears of persecution due to political opinion,’” the court said.
Li was discovered stowed away on a Chinese fishing boat out of Dalian harbor in March by the South Korean Coast Guard on the West Sea. Her decision to flee came after Chinese public security forces began investigating her and her husband for providing aid to around 20 North Koreans over a period beginning in Oct. 2010.
Li applied for refugee status with the Seoul Immigration Office, but was turned down. The office explained its decision by saying Li’s claims “lacked credibility, and even if they are true, her acts were not likely to receive severe punishment in China.”
Li filed with Seoul Administrative Court in March to have the decision overturned.
 
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
 


button that move to original korean article (클릭시 원문으로 이동하는 버튼)

Most viewed articles