2013.07.19 00:11:43
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Kim Joo-cheol, a North Korean resident in the U.K., has appealed to the international society to save his brother and his family. His brother Kwang-ho and his family, who miraculously succeeded in escaping North Korea once again after being lured and abducted by the North Korean spies, were arrested by the Chinese police in Yanji.
Kwang-ho and Ko Kyung-hee were seen in a press conference held at the People’s Palace in Pyongyang on Jan. 24 this year, after being forced to testify that they returned to the homeland after having sickening experience in South Korea.
However, in stark contrast to the seemingly heroic welcome they received by the generous leader Kim Jong-un presented in the press conference, Kwang-ho and Ko were removed from Pyongyang and lived in a provincial town under constant monitoring. When they talked about pork belly slices and Korean ginseng chicken soup they had in South Korea, they were detained by the state security authority and subsequently released.
Kwang-ho, his wife, and their one-year daughter, who could not bear living in stifling North Korean society, successfully escaped North Korea again. They took the wife’s younger sister and her husband, who had never escaped before. However, while they were hiding in China, they were arrested by the Chinese police on July 14. According to Ha Tae-kyung, a lawmaker for the ruling Saenuri Party, and Kim Yong-hwa, head of the North Korea Refugees Human Rights Association of Korea, on July 16, they are currently being jailed in China.
When this news spread across South Korea and the world, Kwang-ho’s younger brother Joo-cheol living in the U.K. started campaigning for saving his brother and his family.
Joo-cheol, who settled in the U.K. in 2007, had heard of his brother’s escape from North Korea, but has never seen him since his own escape. He said he heard about his brother through news occasionally.
Joo-cheol confessed that when he first saw his brother in the press conference televised by the North Korean Central News Agency, he was nervous about what other people would think of himself. “But I was relieved after it was revealed that my brother’s re-defection to North Korea was involuntary and was a result of North Korean authority’s abduction, and that he was forced to glorify the regime during the press conference,” said Joo-cheol.
He urged the international community to save his brother as only death will await him upon repatriation, especially since he was used as a means of propaganda for the Kim Jong-un regime on TV.
Yong-hwa, who was the first to deliver the news of Kwang-ho’s arrest in China through a press conference, said that he had several telephone calls with Kwang-ho when he successfully left North Korea for second time and was hiding in China. Yong-hwa said, “Kwang-ho told me over the telephone that appearing in the televised press conference early this year was the only way he could save his family in North Korea, and he was forced to memorize everything he said on TV for two months by the state security department.”
A South Korean government official said that the South Korean government has requested the Chinese government to have an interview with Kwang-ho and his family in order to protect North Korean escapees, who are legally South Korean citizens. After finding out accurate information on how Kwang-ho’s family went to North Korea, escaped again, and got arrested, the South Korean government will try to offer them protection more proactively.
In fact, during the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping last month, South Korean President Park Geun-hye requested that China takes more interest in human rights of North Korean escapees. It remains to see whether the summit would have positive impact in releasing Kwang-ho.
The North Korean Residents Society in Europe, which is based in the U.K., said they will launch a worldwide campaign for their safe journey to South Korea as Kwang-ho and his family will undoubtedly face the most atrocious kind of punishment if they are sent back to North Korea.
FreeNK Newpaper – News Team
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