North Korean Refugees Human Rights

TO: Tom Lantos Human  Rights Commission,US Congress

CC: UN Human Rights Council 

We the undersigned hereby petition to urge your  human rights commission to hear our moral indignation against the collaborated atrocities of the Moon Jae-In’s previous South Korean administration and N Korean communist regime  in outrageous and unconscionable violation of human rights and  to bring justice and prevent repeated crimes against humanity.    Two fishermen were forcefully thrown into death pit blindfolded in one case, while a government fishery official was left abandoned with no attempt to rescue to be set on fire and shot hours later by a North Korean authority in another.

New South Korean prosecutors raided the country’s main spy agency recently this June 2022 in an investigation into two past North Korea-related incidents that drew criticism that the previous liberal government ignored basic human rights to improve ties with the North.

New conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol, who took office in May, has accused his pro-North Korea predecessor, Moon Jae-in, of being “submissive” to North Korea and has moved to resolve persistent suspicions about the handling of the two cases. His push has triggered a backlash from liberals who accuse him of political revenge against his rivals.

The case include North Korea’s fatal shooting of a South Korean fisheries official near the Koreas’ western sea boundary in September 2020, and South Korea’s deportation of two North Korean fishermen despite their wish to resettle in South Korea in 2019. The raid came days after the National Intelligence Service, now under Yoon’s government, filed charges against two of its former directors who served under Moon. It accused them of abusing power, damaging public records and falsifying documents.

Can you imagine a picture of forcefully throwing two asylum seeking innocent fishermen blindfolded into the pit of death and into the waiting hands of North Korean communists police?

On 2nd November 2019, two fishermen from N. Korea escaped to ask for their protection in free democratic country of South Korea. Then President Moon Jae-In was eager to please Kim Jong-Un of N Korea and sent a personal invitation for him to attend the upcoming ASEAN summit in Busan on November 27th, 2019. The Moon Jae-In’s presidential office held their Security staff meeting to decide the fate of these two fishermen and contacted N Korean administration to repatriate back into N Korea and received the approval. The Moon administration  claimed that the fishermen had murdered 16 N Koreans although there were no evidence, and even N Korean authorities did not acknowledge it. There were no investigations to verify it other than one day to determine their fate.  Technically the two refugees were South Korean citizens and were to be protected under S Korean constitution to be investigated and tried to verify the allegations.They signed documents stating in no unclear terms that they wanted to escape N Korea and defect into South Korea, although Moon Jae-In’s office staff claims that they wanted to return back to their country, but all the evidence doesn’t support it. When they were carried out to the 38th armistice line at Panmoonjum, blind folded forcefully, against their will, they collapsed, and one of them hit his head onto the concrete floor trying to kill himself upon seeing the waiting North Korean police, and everyone viewing the video replay of the scene could hear the loud sound of head bumping the concrete floor and blood flowing out of his brain. No words can describe the human emotional reactions viewing this and realizing what was happening. We ask who are these people forcibly throwing another innocent human being into death pit, despite their expressed wish to resettle in South Korea? Do they have any empathy? Who is behind this inhumane acts? There is a Principle of Non-Refoulement set by International Human rights Advocacy which bans specifically this inhumane acts of violence. Moon Jae-In was supposedly a human rights advocating attorney prior to becoming the S Korean president after mobilizing candlelight anti-government demonstrations and illegally impeaching his predecessor President Park Geun-Hae by organizing popular political uprisings with falsified charges against her. 

North Korea’s fatal shooting of a South Korean Fisheries official near the Koreas’ western sea boundary in 2020: Overturning its predecessor’s assessment, South Korea’s new conservative government said on June 16th 2022 that there is no evidence that a South Korean official slain by North Korea near the rivals’ disputed sea boundary in September 2020 had intended to defect to the North.

The killing of the fisheries official has been a major source of domestic divide in South Korea, with conservatives accusing then-President Moon Jae-in’s liberal government of failing to strongly respond to North Korea in the hopes of better ties. About a week after his killing, South Korean officials announced the man had gambling debts and swam to resettle in the North. Disclosing confidential South Korean documents about the man’s death was a campaign promise by current President Yoon Suk Yeol, who won the March 9 election on the platform of taking a tougher stance on North Korean provocations. South Korean officials said the 47-year-old had disappeared from a government ship that was checking on unauthorized fishing in the area. Moon’s government had sharply condemned the North’s action initially, but its criticism eased gradually after receiving a North Korean message that it said contained leader Kim Jong Un’s apology over the case. During a parliamentary committee meeting at the time, then-South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook said they believed the official was attempting to defect because he left his shoes on the ship, put on a life jacket and boarded a floating object. The Moon government said the slain official was saddled with gambling debts and had family troubles when he swam to North Korea. But others disputed those claims. Conservative critics say that assessment was meant to lessen possible public sympathy for the dead official and prevent an increase in anti-North Korea sentiment in South Korea. Last month, Yoon’s government said there was no evidence that the official attempted to flee to North Korea, overturning the Moon government’s assessment. The man N Korea killed was a cvil servant of S Korea’s Ministry of Ocean & Fisheries.The North never pulled him up from the seawater while he was alive for 6 hours struggling to survive on a floating object, killing and burning him like this. Moon Jae-In was clearly standing on the side of North Korea. He should give up on his fantasy dream of peaceful unification. Intelligence documents and reports on the civil servant were deleted from the defense ministry’s network, and former Intelligence Chiefs Park Ji-Won and NIS director Suh Hoon, Chung Eui Yong and former Unification Minister Kim Yeonchul have been charged. Two of them quickly left South Korea soon after. 

In an escalating legal battle, the family of a South Korean fisheries official killed by North Korean troops filed an appeal asking the Constitutional Court on Wednesday to stop the Moon Jae-in administration’s plan to archive the information related to the case as part of the presidential record. Once archived, the information would not be released to the public for as long as 15 years. The official Lee Dae-Jin, 47, had gone missing the previous day while on patrol duty. His older brother, Lee Rae-jin, told reporters outside the Constitutional Court, “Despite losing, Moon's administration decided to appeal the court’s ruling and is refusing to disclose the information.” In a first trial held in November last year, Lee won a lawsuit against the Moon administration in which Seoul’s administrative court ordered the release of the records. He said that was when he learned that the Moon administration planned to designate the information as classified presidential archive material. Lee said the government authorities have claimed his brother, who was a father of two children and an employee at the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, was a defector to the North without due evidence. He pointed out that the National Human Rights Commission found the government announcements regarding the killing as entailing a violation of human rights. This is yet another human rights violation of a government employee gone missing and abandoned, and subsequentley killed by the adversary authoritarian government  in an open sea during the course of his official conduct, with no rescue attempt. Then president Moon Jae-In had the full responsibility to protect and rescue with 6 hours he had to act, but he chose to ignore the reports he had received and went ahead enjoyed watching an Acappella performance show while his pre-recorded UN address for declaring an end of the Korean War, his fantasy dream of Korean Peninsula peace, was being broadcasted.

In September 2020, several Honam region congressional members from the party in-power then attempted to conciliate his brother Lee Rae-Jin by enticing him to say publicly that his younger brother intentionally defected to North Korea. 

Incidently, there are roughly estimated 200,000 N Korean refugees hiding in China in fear of forcefully being repatriated back to N Korea and about 30,000 resettled in South Korea.

Let us help save lives of North Korean refugees who fled from the ironclad North Korean administration and stop throwing them into death pits!

Thank you and sincerely,

Simon Chongman Lee, Chair of the board

KHAA-NA (Korean High schools Alumni Alliance-North America 북미주 고교 연합)

CGKA ( Council for Global Korean Affairs 해외 한국 인권 협회)