SEOUL, South Korea — Angry demonstrators staged a rally Tuesday near the Chinese Embassy to protest Beijing’s state-security police for arresting dozens of North Korean defectors who face torture, imprisonment and even death if returned to their homeland.
For years, human-rights advocates have criticized China’s refusal to recognize North Korean defectors and its policy to return, or repatriate, all escapees from the North captured on its soil. Beijing’s stance has taken on more urgency in recent weeks after new North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un vowed to punish and even kill three generations of family members of anyone trying to leave the impoverished North.
On Tuesday, ringed by police officers, more than 100 people gathered across the street from the Chinese Embassy, waving banners that read, “The Chinese government should stop pushing North Korean defectors toward the guillotine” and “Forced repatriation is a death sentence.”
South Korean newspapers reported that separate arrests of northern defectors over the last week in China have brought the total of detainees to as many as 33, but activists could not confirm those numbers. Los Angeles Times
