North Korean Refugees in Russian Detention Center
Here is an update regarding a number of North Korean refugees in whose rescue we have been participating.
Two of these North Korean refugees that had been imprisoned in the Vladivostok Foreigner Detention Center were released recently and arrived in Moscow two days ago. They had already applied for refugee status, but the Russian court had refused to recognize their refugee status, and thus they had been imprisoned in the foreigner detention center for two years.
North Korea currently has tens of thousands of its citizens working in Russia to help earn foreign currency, but these workers are constantly kept under the tightest scrutiny.
Russia’s “Sakhalin Foreigner Detention Center Law ” stipulates that prisoners cannot be held for more than two years, and they were released by an administrative tribunal of the Russian court. Upon their release, UNHCR guaranteed their identities and transported them by plane to a refugee camp in Moscow.
However, due to the coronavirus situation, they must spend a week in isolation in Moscow before being sent on to the refugee camp.
Other imprisoned North Koreans will also be released after two years of incarceration, and they will be sent to a refugee camp in Moscow as well.
What worries us, however, is that the North Koreans in the foreigner detention center are expected to be repatriated to North Korea once the coronavirus situation improves and the North Korean authorities open the border. We can only hope that the opening of the border by the North Korean authorities will be delayed.
Funding has been provided by LFNKR to help purchase clothing, shoes, food and daily necessities for the North Koreans currently incarcerated in the Vladivostok Foreigner Detention Center.
We will continue to closely observe the situation surrounding the North Koreans in the Vladivostok Foreign Camps and offer any support that we can.
For your reference, here is a rough translation of an article regarding North Korean workers in Russia. This article is posted on a Japanese news website of Shogakukan, a major Japanese publisher.
220302 NEWS POST SEVEN
North Korea Tightens Surveillance on Workers Sent to Russia, Wary of Defections
The North Korean government is watching its North Korean workers sent to Russia to obtain foreign currency, and has banned them from working part-time at construction sites individually. Officials have ordered them to always work in groups of 10 to 20 people, and even took away their cell phones, indicating that the North Korean secret police, led by the Ministry of State Security, are increasingly monitoring these workers.
According to the U.S. government-affiliated news agency Radio Free Asia (RFA), an estimated 20,000 North Koreans have been sent to Russia, but in mid-January several North Korean workers went missing while working away from their escort personnel. North Korean authorities believe that this is because the workers have become less loyal to the Kim Jong-un regime while in Russia, and have decided to strengthen surveillance, including issuing a ban on part-time work.
North Korea has sealed its borders since January 2020 due to the spread of the new coronavirus and has in principle banned all its citizens from entering and leaving the country, but has allowed migrant workers to leave for China and Russia to earn foreign currency.
According to a U.S. State Department report, there are between 20,000 and 80,000 North Koreans working in China, Russia, and other countries abroad, most of whom enter the countries on short-term student or tourist visas under false identities so as not to be caught by UN sanctions against North Korea.
However, these workers have lost their jobs at construction sites due to the spread of the new coronavirus, and many of them are in dire straits and seeking support from local ethnic South Koreans.
In Russia, Korean missionaries, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and local Russian aid groups have contacted impoverished North Korean workers and even arranged for their asylum in some cases.
This has led to even stricter monitoring by the North Korean authorities, who have taken away the cell phones, passports, and identification cards that workers use to get part-time jobs, forcing them to work in groups of 10 to 20 people with a monitor at all times. In Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, the dormitory for North Korean workers is said to have not only surveillance cameras, but the building itself is surrounded by steel plates and is under strict security measures.