Iranian-born asylum seeker still faces prejudice after receiving refugee status

Posted on : 2019-06-05 17:20 KST Modified on : 2019-06-05 17:20 KST
Kwon Min-hyeok still struggling to have his father recognized as refugee
Choi Young-ae
Choi Young-ae

“There was an internet post targeting me that remains indelibly etched on my mind. It said, ‘While we can’t just abandon the lives of those who have arrived in our midst, we shouldn’t be taking in black-haired beasts.”

Kim Min-hyeok, a 17-year-old born in Tehran, has been facing constant prejudice and hatred targeting “foreigners” and “refugees” since arriving in South Korea with his businessman father at the age of seven in 2010.

Kim, who received official refugee status recognition in October of last year, said there was “no major difference in the discrimination and hatred I faced before receiving refugee status and now that I have it.” Before he received the status, he encountered prejudice for being a “foreigner” who could not speak Korean; now, he hears remarks about how refugees “are all poor” and “only became refugees to take away jobs,” and how “crime increases when we take refugees in.”

“We’re free to think what we think, but the expression of those thoughts is very hurtful to people,” Kim said.

Kim and his father, who both converted from Islam to Catholicism after moving to South Korea, applied for refugee status from the government in May 2016, unable to return to Iran due to conversion being viewed there as a serious crime according to Islamic law. But the Ministry of Justice denied the request, concluding that the younger Kim’s religious values were “not yet established.” He ultimately requested a review, receiving recognition two years later in October 2018.

“I felt angry about the Justice Ministry and Supreme Court not accepting Min-hyeok’s refugee application, which I thought was unfair,” Kim Ji-yu, a 17-year-old former classmate of Kim Min-hyeok’s at Aju Middle School who campaigned for his refugee status recognition, said last year.

“I called a meeting of the student council, and we submitted a citizens’ petition to the Blue House and demonstrated at the Office of Immigration,” she recalled.

“The process of receiving petitions from students and teachers for his father, who has yet to have his refugee status recognized, has been even tougher than for Min-hyeok,” she said.

“I felt really disheartened when I saw friends and teachers saying things like ‘what do refugees have to do with us?’ or ‘I’m against taking in immigrants.’”

In a ceremony at its study center in Seoul’s Jung (Central) district on June 4, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) announced that it had organized a campaign to establish social support on the issues of hatred and discrimination and improve public perceptions. The campaign’s slogan is “see each person in their own color.” The message is that coexistence is possible if people view social minorities without prejudice, maintaining their own identities in an atmosphere where different individuals are respected.

While attending the declaration ceremony for the campaign that day, Kim Min-hyeok and Kim Ji-yu delivered a presentation in which they talked about the hatred, prejudice, and discrimination encountered in the process of Iranian-born Kim Min-hyeok’s refugee application review, as well as their experiences uniting to resist them.

Oh Hyeon-rok, an Aju Middle School teacher who actively helped out Kim Min-hyeok’s application alongside Kim Ji-yu, called on the NHRCK’s special hatred and discrimination response committee to “emphasize that a lot of refugees are being absurdly and unfairly represented as ‘false refugees’ and enlist intellectuals to participate in the opposition to changing refugee laws for the worse and the fight against hatred and discrimination.”

NHRCK plans to carry out its campaign through different online and offline approaches, including public interest radio spots and SNS hashtags.

By Kwon Ji-dam, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]

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