to assist two Japanese-born North Korean refugees, a Christian human rights watchdog said Tuesday, August 10.
U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) said Takayuki Noguchi arrived Monday night in Japan from China, where he was greeted by family members, friends and dozens of reporters.
Noguchi was arrested last year by Chinese security forces on Human Rights Day, December 10, in the town of Nanning in Guangxi province, after trying to help two North Korean refugees, a man in his 50s and a woman in her 40s, to escape to freedom, CSW reported.
CSW said the man was born in West Japan, but moved to North Korea in the early 1960s. The other unidentified refugee, a woman who was also born in Japan, was taken to North Korea as a child by her mother "who believed the propaganda that North Korea was "a paradise on earth", added CSW which has been in close contacts with Noguchi.
After the refugees were detained with Noguchi, they were soon repatriated to North Korea where they were expected to face police brutality. Noguchi recalled "how he is haunted by the male refugee’s desperate groan of "I am already dead" when the Chinese police entered their hotel room," CSW said in a statement seen by BosNewsLife.
MISTREATMENT
"The man’s prediction is sadly realistic, as those returned to North Korea regularly face mistreatment, imprisonment, torture and even execution, " CSW claimed. "Those found to have come into contact with foreigners and aid workers or who have sought to leave the country are treated with particular brutality, with reports of executions in such cases."
Noguchi and his organization Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, had been pleading for intervention to secure the protection of the two refugees from repatriation. "His sentence arose from his refusal to co-operate with the authorities to secure his own release unless given assurance of their safety," CSW claimed.
CSW, which has been campaigning for his release, stressed the case "highlighted, once again, China’s abysmal record regarding North Korean refugees. Although a party to the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, China refuses to allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees access to North Koreans who have escaped into China."
ASYLUM
The country has also "denied channels to exercise the right to claim asylum. North Koreans live in precarious conditions in China, or are forced to take the dangerous route of seeking to escape to a safe third country," CSW said.
Stuart Windsor, CSW’s National Director, said: We rejoice with Mr Noguchi that he has his freedom after his courageous stand for human rights in China. However we are appalled by China’s callous cruelty in sending back refugees to such brutal fates."
His organization has urged the international community to stand up and address "the horrific way North Korea treats returned refugees and the guilt of China’s complicity in these terrible crimes." There was no immediate reaction from Chinese authorities to the latest report.
China and North Korea are both Communist nations that maintain close political and economic ties. Human rights workers say thousands of Christians and political dissidents are held in prisons and labor camps in both countries, and many have been tortured and several executed throughout the years.
