Four South Korean human rights activists held in China for more than 50 days


A Korean civic group plans to petition the U.N. to pressure China to release four activists for North Korean human rights, its president told The Korea Herald.

The North Korea Democracy Network is also contacting international non-governmental organizations to help Kim Young-hwan and three others arrested in the northeastern city of Dalian on March 29 on suspicion of “threatening national security.”

“We learned that it is inappropriate to deny them consular access so far. Thus, we are now considering appealing to the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Amnesty International and others,” said NKDN president Han Ki-hong.

“Even if the activists had ever violated the Chinese law, it is inappropriate not to allow any face-to-face contact (with consulates) for the foreigners. It would be a problem even when this happens to its own nationals.”

To file an official petition to the U.N. body, the group is closely working with the secretariat of the International Coalition to Stop Crimes against Humanity in North Korea, which consists of more than 45 international human rights groups.

“We are working on the petition and plan to finish the work within this week. Once it is submitted, we believe this will increase international attention to the case involving the devoted activists for North Korea’s human rights,” said Kwon Eun-kyoung, senior member of the ICNK secretariat based in Seoul.

Recognizing the ongoing efforts to appeal to the international community, the Seoul government said that it would back them, while it is apparently cautious about the possibility of the issue escalating into a diplomatic row.

“The North Korea Democracy Network and other activist groups can make strong appeals to the U.N. And then, the Seoul government can back them up at a government level,” Seoul’s Foreign Ministry deputy spokesperson Han Hye-jin told reporters.

“(That is because) in terms of humanitarian concerns, they have been denied access to lawyers. We still don’t have any scheduled contact (with the detainees).”

Since Kim Young-hwan was allowed to meet a consulate on April 26 for the first time, all four have been denied access to South Korean officials or lawyers. Beijing maintains that in the case of those who have allegedly violated the national security law, such access can be withheld in accordance with domestic law.

Beijing officials have yet to explain to Seoul the exact details concerning their charges. Seoul officials also said that the four are unwilling to talk about their charges, sparking speculation over why they were detained.

Some observers say that North Korea may have asked China to arrest them as they have been key drivers of the movement for democracy and freedom in the repressive state. Others raised the possibility that China arrested them to show to Pyongyang that it cares about the concerns of its impoverished ally.

Among the four detainees, Kim Young-hwan was at the center of public attention as he has spearheaded a campaign to free the downtrodden in the North since he renounced his ardent support for the North’s political ideology of Juche, or self-reliance, in the mid-1990s.

Entering Seoul National University in 1982, Kim led the movement against dictatorship, and supported and shared the North’s guiding Juche ideology among university students. For this, he was arrested for violating the National Security Law in 1986 and released in 1988.

Along with other student activists, Kim formed a secret students’ alliance endorsing the pro-communist views in 1989. He then smuggled himself into Pyongyang and met with then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung in 1991.

But his enthusiasm for the Juche ideology dissipated after he encountered the hunger and repression the North Koreans had long suffered. His disillusionment deepened after Hwang Jang-yop, former secretary of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, defected to the South in 1997. Hwang is the chief architect of the ideology.

Kim then led the work to disband the secret alliance in 1997. He became an activist for democracy in North Korea and participated as a founding member of the North Korea Democracy Network in 1999.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)