Once again, China has pushed back the notion of universal freedom. This time nine North Korean defectors who have escapted the young troll's tyrany have been forced to return to the isolated northern prison located on the Korean penninsula known as North Korea by China.
The nine individuals seeking to live in freedeom were initially captured in Laos, a South Korean news report stated.
In light of previously known freedom paths to freedom, does this shift in events present a new policy by Laotian and China that North Koreans seeking to escape from the young troll no longer be assisted in their quest for freedom?
It appears this way.
 |
| Over 25,000 North Koreans Have Previously Escaped Via China |
Previously, Laos had been assumed to be a safe route for North Koreans seeking to live in freedom and flee the monsterous control of the dictator who collects Nike sneakers and seeks out Dennis Rodman as a political advisor (As reported by the New York Times today, the trolls first choice was Michael Jordan).
Activists say that defectors who are returned to North Korea can be punished or even killed by the regime, considered one of the world’s most repressive and brutal. In today's enviornment, I think it is important to ask ourselves, how far would the troll go to make a point?
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported the defectors were flown back to North Korea on Tuesday despite a request from South Korea that China not repatriate them.
The report said the defectors, aged between 15 and 23, fled to Laos through China last month and were caught by Laotian authorities earlier this month. Laos sent the defectors to China on Monday, weeks after a Laotian delegation visited the North Korean capital.
In a statement, the U.S. State Department said it was concerned about reports and urged “all countries in the region to co-operate in the protection of North Korean refugees within their territories.” Close to 25,000 North Koreans have left their country since the Korean War, most of them over the last 10 years.
Often with the help of Christian missionary groups and having paid thousands of dollars to people smugglers, they have traditionally travelled first to China and then onward through Southeast Asian countries to Thailand, where they can fly to South Korea with the help of the government in Seoul. Defections across the land border between the Koreas are very rare.
China, North Korea’s foremost ally, does not recognize North Korean defectors as asylum seekers and can return them. Isn't that wonderful? Once again, and for what seems to be 'forever' China denies the right of the individual to know liberty.
“It’s tragic and disappointing,” Kim Eun-young, an activist with the Seoul-based Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, said Thursday of the reported repatriation. “We fear defectors will now feel more intimidated about trying to come to South Korea through Laos or other Southeast Asian countries.”
Overall, I think the world really needs to aks if this act is a shift in China's policy of allowing refuges to pass through its country in route to South Korea or other nations that welcome them. If it is a change in policy, well, to put it mildly - that sucks.
Some of you may be interested in knowing that the sequel to 'The Den of The Assassin' weaves a story jettisoned in great length in North Korea.
