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North Koreans who try to escape the communist state are far from safety if they manage to make it into China, as they are often repatriated. On Tuesday, defectors and South Korean supporters protested at the Chinese Embassy in Seoul, calling on Beijing to stop sending defectors back home to North Korea, where they face possible persecution and death.
Activists in Seoul rallied on Tuesday urging China to stop repatriating North Korean defectors to their isolated state.
More than a hundred activists, including North Korean defectors now living in the South, gathered in front of the Chinese Embassy in Seoul. They accused the North's new leadership, headed by the late Kim Jong-il's youngest son, Kim Jong-un, of excessive control.
[Im Chun-young, President, Free North Korea Military Union]:
"Kim Jong-un has treated North Korean defectors harsher than before since he does not want them to let the outside world know about the reality inside the communist country. Kim Jong-un does not have enough experience in the political system, so his first task is to control the inside of North Korea. Their first job is to stop North Korean defectors from running away from the country. North Korea concentrates their efforts on stopping them from running away, to control the inside."
[...]
[Cho Byung-jae, Spokesman, South Korean Foreign Ministry]:
"They should not be forcibly returned (to the North) against their will. We have made it clear to China they should treat them from a humanitarian standpoint."
[...]
According to statistics from Seoul's unification ministry, more than 20,000 North Koreans have defected to the South to escape poverty and repression in the North.
The two Koreas are still technically at war because an armistice, not a treaty, ended their 1950-53 civil conflict.