Statement of Protest Against Russia’s Forced Transfer of Ukrainian Citizens
Although we are mainly engaged in the support and advocation of North Korean refugees and North Korean human rights, LFNKR has agreed with three North Korean human rights groups based in Japan to issue the following statement of protest against Russia’s human rights abuses.
Statement of Protest Against Russia’s Forced Transfer of Ukrainian Citizens
Sept. 30, 2022
Korea Human Rights Network
NO FENCE
Life Funds for North Korean Refugees
The Society To Help Returnees To North Korea
In a video address to the Asian Leaders’ Summit in Seoul, South Korea, on July 13, President Zelensky charged that since the invasion, Russian forces have “forcibly transferred some 2 million Ukrainians, including hundreds of thousands of children, and tens of thousands of Ukrainians are being held in select Russian camps.” He said that “those deported have been deprived of communication, had their identity papers taken away, are being intimidated, and are being taken to the Russian frontier, making it difficult for them to return to their homeland,” and made a strong appeal to the world for help for their own people.
On June 18, the Russian Defense Ministry had claimed that the forced displacement was “part of the measures of comprehensive assistance to save the Ukrainian people,” and on July 13 announced that “about 2.5 million displaced people, including about 400,000 children, were received from inside Ukraine as humanitarian measures.” In addition, at the UN Security Council meeting on September 7, Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr. Nebenzya, refuted the interrogation of Ukrainian citizens by Russian troops in the occupied territories, saying, “What is being done there is not interrogation but a registration procedure,” and that “the West is spreading new disinformation in order to undermine Russia,” he claimed.
However, as of March 19, Mariupol’s city council had already stated on social networking sites about the Russian actions, “Barbaric acts like the forced removal of people by the Nazis during World War II are happening in the 21st century. It is unimaginable that citizens are being taken away to another country.” On July 13, U.S. Secretary of State Blinken also issued a statement saying, “The illegal transfer and deportation of protected persons is a grave violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention for the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and constitutes a war crime.” According to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has deemed forced migration, a “crime against humanity.
We, four organizations working on human rights issues in North Korea, are skeptical of the claims made by Russia, who refuse any investigation by international organizations and strongly protest the forced migration. This is because Russia has a history of forcibly transferring residents of enemy countries to its own country and using prisoners of war as forced labor during the former Soviet era. Before World War II, the Soviet Union forcibly transferred Germans and Dutch near its western border to Siberia, and 570,000 Japanese soldiers captured during World War II were forced to work, and 58,000 of them lost their lives due to cold, hunger, and hard labor. There is also a history of forced migration of people of Korean descent to Central Asia.
According to foreign press reports, forcibly transferred Ukrainians are detained in selection camps under the Russian intelligence authorities, detained under inhumane conditions, and separated according to whether they are civilians or dissidents. During this process, some of them were interrogated and tortured. Some were reportedly sent to Sakhalin in the Far East, more than 16,000 kilometers from the border of their home country. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at the UN Security Council on September 7, “The purpose of these activities is to identify individuals who are not subject to Russian rule and to prepare them for annexation to Russia. They are trying to conduct a sham referendum.” She then condemned Russia for “forcible transfer constitutes a war crime under international law,” and urged Russia to accept a UN investigation.
We, four organizations concerned with human rights issues in North Korea, insist that any emergency evacuation or relocation of Ukrainian citizens to Russia must be carried out in the presence of the Ukrainian government or the International Committee of the Red Cross, “after confirming whether it is of their own free will and whether the human rights of the Ukrainian citizens after relocation will be protected.”
The reason is that the Japanese government and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), without thoroughly figuring out what kind of life the people in North Korea would enjoy under the “Return to North Korea Program,” which started 63 years ago in 1959 and ended in 1984, sent 93,340 zainichi Koreans and their Japanese spouses who believed in socialism and believed the propaganda of the North Korean government and the Chongryon that they could live in “paradise on earth”, to North Korea under the one-party dictatorship of the Workers’ Party of Korea as a “humanitarian measure.” As a result, many of the returnees were deprived of their whole freedom and forced to live in poverty, political prison camps, or psychiatric wards for mental illness.
If the claim of the Russian government “part of the comprehensive support measures to save Ukrainian citizens” is true, the Russian government should immediately disclose “the details of where the forcibly displaced Ukrainian citizens are being held and what kind of life they are leading.” It should also accept the investigation of the UN to the forced migrants and allow the media to interview them. Based on the above points, we strongly urge the Russian government to take good actions and to ensure the early return of all Ukrainians who wish to return home.