China petition: 'Stop sending North Korean refugees home to their deaths.' Pix, audio, video available |
| Aug 15 2008 |
| Postings >> China |
With the eyes of the world on China for the Olympic Games, Release International has launched a website and a petition calling for fairer treatment of North Korean refugees. Each year China sends back thousands of escapees to face imprisonment, torture and even execution in their homeland.
Three tell their harrowing stories on Run for your Life, a new website launched by Christian human rights organisation Release International. http://www.runforyourlife.info/index.html
China is far from being a safe haven for the many who cross the border to escape famine and intense religious persecution. In China they have to run the gauntlet of human traffickers, government informers and secret police. Those caught face forced repatriation – returning to brutal interrogation, jail or death.
Yet many thousands still make the hazardous journey along the so-called ‘underground railroad’ in search of freedom. By forcing these refugees to return home China is violating the 1951 UN Convention on refugees, which it has signed.
Christian human rights organisation Release International has launched a petition to express grave concern at China’s treatment of North Korean refugees.
Release is urging the Chinese government to acknowledge their refugee status – China currently regards them as economic migrants – and call an immediate halt to forced repatriation.
Says Release CEO Andy Dipper: ‘During the Olympic Games many North Koreans are also running for their lives – literally. We are urging the Chinese government to act compassionately to the many men, women and children who risk all to flee one of the world’s most repressive regimes.’
Tim Peters of Release partner Helping Hands Korea has assisted many refugees to freedom along the ‘underground railroad’ and has set up safe houses. He says: ‘Religious persecution is absolute inside North Korea. Christians outside the few state-run 'show churches' are not allowed to have a Bible and are forbidden to gather.
‘If it is revealed that a family is Christian, then not only the one who has committed this state crime would be taken off to a political prison camp, but that individual's children, and their parents - three generations. This is possibly the most severe Christian persecution that exists in the world.’
Attempting to escape through China is fraught with danger – not least from human traffickers who exploit these vulnerable refugees who are without papers or status in China.
‘We are asking the Chinese government to bring an end to this by recognising the status of these refugees,’ says Andy Dipper of Release International, ‘and to give them safe passage to the other countries they are risking all to reach.
‘China – the world’s eyes are on you – now is the time to show compassion to the poorest of the poor. Help the North Korean refugees.’
You can download the petition and an A4 poster at: http://www.runforyourlife.info/completed/your_help.html
Through its international network of missions Release International supports Christians imprisoned for their faith and their families in 30 nations. It supports church workers, pastors and their families, and provides training, Bibles, Christian literature and broadcasts. Release International is a member of the UK organisations Global Connections, the Evangelical Alliance and the Micah Network.
