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Ryukyung Restaurant in Ningbo

The decision by the Blue House and Ministries of Unification of Foreign Affairs to share news of a group defection by employees at an overseas North Korean restaurant and attribute it to Seoul’s recent sanctions against Pyongyang contradicts the South Korean government’s own policy emphasis on protecting the human rights of North Korean defectors.

By disclosing the defections as a way of emphasizing the sanctions’ effectiveness and the North’s internal turmoil ahead of the general elections on Apr. 13, they stand to have a negative impact on family members left behind in North Korea and the safety of people still working at the overseas restaurants.

The latest defection was announced very suddenly, and the press responded in a swift and well-organized fashion. In the past, Seoul made it a matter of basic policy not to disclose information about defections. Its chief concerns were diplomatic relations with the countries in question, as well as the safety of the defectors and their remaining family members in the North. The defection of Kim Man-cheol and his family in the 1980s and ‘90s was announced publicly, but few details about individual defections have been provided to the media since the ’00s. It is also considered highly unusual for the arrival of the defectors to be disclosed to the press a day later without their having undergone questioning by the National Intelligence Service and other agencies.

The administration’s hasty decision to share the facts of the group defection raises the chances that the safety of workers at overseas North Korean restaurants and remaining family members in the North will be threatened. Typically, defections are treated as missing persons cases by the North’s State Security Department. Questioning is conducted, and if it is not found that the individuals have traveled to South Korea, family members are not punished.

But because the authorities already know the restaurant in the latest case, the chances of family members being punished are high.

“Everything [about the defectors] has already gotten out,” said Jung Kwang-il, representative of the Association of North Korean Political Prison Camp Victim Family Members.

“Their identities would have been looked up when they left North Korea, and they would have been managed to prevent their leaving,” Jung said.

Committee for the Democratization of North Korea vice president Kim Young-soon predicted the defectors‘ family members “will be expelled [from their place of residence] or collectively punished.”

In that regard, the administration’s announcement may also be in violation of the law. Article 4-1 of the Act on the Protection and Settlement Support of Residents Escaping from North Korea states that the Republic of Korea “shall provide persons eligible for protection with special protection on the principle of humanitarianism.”

Many observers said the announcement itself was contradictory. While the administration announced the fact of the group defection, it did not provide specifics on the identities of the defectors or the route of their departure.

As reasons for its silence, it said, “As a matter of practice, we cannot state [the information] due to concerns about frictions with the third country, protection of [the defectors‘] physical safety, and other cases that may occur in the future.”

A senior Ministry of Unification official said on Apr. 10 that it was “rather significant that middle-class people from good backgrounds in North Korea defected as a group due to [South Korea’s] sanctions against the North.”

The same official declined to offer specifics, noting that the case was “still under investigation by the relevant institutions.”

But news outlets have already reported the locations of overseas North Korean restaurants, citing government sources.

“When the administration talks about how the family members of defectors in North Korea all go to political prison camps, and then turns around and makes an announcement about where they worked that allows for their identities to come out in reports, it‘s behaving in a contradictory way that jeopardizes the safety of those family members,” said Jang Kyung-wook, an attorney with the group MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society.

By Kim Jin-cheol and Bang Jun-ho, staff reporters

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