UN Questions Repatriation and Detention... North Korea Rejects "Interference in Internal Affairs"

North Korea has dismissed a letter from the United Nations inquiring about forcibly repatriated defectors and South Korean missionaries detained in the North as a "political conspiracy." With the upcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of North Korea scheduled for November, voices are calling for the government to take a more proactive stance in applying pressure.

According to a response obtained by Asia Economy on the 19th, Ambassador Bang Gwang-hyuk, Charg? d'Affaires of North Korea's mission in Geneva, described the claims raised by the UN Human Rights Council's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) as "typical anti-North Korean human rights slanders using every conceivable means," stating that "such claims tarnish our dignified national image and seriously infringe upon the judicial jurisdiction of a sovereign state."

Missionary Kim Jung-wook detained in North Korea since October 2013

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Ambassador Bang reiterated his strong objection, calling it an "unacceptable political slander" and asserting that "North Korea firmly rejects this as a violation of sovereignty and interference in internal affairs." He further urged WGAD to "recognize the malicious motives behind these claims and adopt a fair and critical attitude toward the wrongful attempts of hostile forces colluding based on falsehoods and speculation," displaying a brazen attitude.

Earlier, WGAD sent letters to North Korea on May 10th regarding defector Kim Cheol-ok, who was reportedly taken to North Korea during a large-scale forced repatriation last October, and on the 26th of last month concerning three South Korean missionaries (Kim Jung-wook, Kim Guk-gi, and Choi Chun-gil) detained in North Korea.

China forcibly repatriated around 500 defectors immediately after the closing of the Asian Games last October. Kim Cheol-ok is known to have been repatriated via the Baishan detention center. Having defected at the age of fourteen in 1988, he was sold to a rural area in Jilin Province, China, where he married a local man thirty years his senior. His repatriation indicates that authorities have been monitoring defectors in the area for an extended period and organized their return.

Missionary Kim Jung-wook was arrested in Pyongyang in October 2013 and sentenced to "life labor reform" in May the following year on charges including plotting to overthrow the state, anti-state propaganda, and illegal border crossing. Missionaries Kim Guk-gi and Choi Chun-gil have been detained for ten years since 2014.

North Korea's response to the letter from the United Nations Human Rights Council's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD).

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WGAD was established in 1991 by the then UN Commission on Human Rights (now the Human Rights Council) to investigate complaints of arbitrary detention violating international standards and request corrective actions from authorities. In May 2020, it recognized the damages from the KAL plane hijacking incident and demanded the release of victims.

Due to the difficulty of gathering information on North Korea, WGAD has not previously addressed forced repatriations or detainees separately. However, this letter is seen as a result of a visit to Geneva, Switzerland, in March this year by Choi Jin-young, son of missionary Choi Chun-gil, and the Ministry of Unification's Abductee Policy Team. At that time, related ministries including the Ministry of Unification and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs facilitated communication with the UN Human Rights Council, and after returning home, online meetings with victims' families were held. Consequently, WGAD accepted the victims' petition and sent letters to North Korea requesting fact verification and a position statement.

The UN Human Rights Council is preparing for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of North Korea this coming November. The case of Kim Cheol-ok is likely to be reviewed in the last week of this month, but it is uncertain whether the issue of the three missionaries will be examined before the North Korea UPR. The UPR is a representative UN human rights protection mechanism that regularly reviews the human rights situation of all member states and recommends legal, institutional, and policy reforms to the countries under review. During China's UPR held in January this year, the South Korean government explicitly mentioned "defectors" for the first time, pointing out the issue of forced repatriation.

Shin Hee-seok, a former legal analyst at the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), emphasized, "The government should raise the issue more actively so that other countries can specifically mention these cases," adding, "During North Korea's UPR in 2019, countries like Uruguay and Iceland explicitly mentioned the KAL plane hijacking incident and the name of Hwang Won (an abductee who was an MBC PD at the time). Such explicit criticism exerts much greater pressure on North Korean authorities."

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