South Korea has rejected refugee status for ethnic Chinese people who have been “stateless” since they fled North Korea years ago, two of the applicants and an activists’ group said yesterday.
Unlike North Korean defectors, who receive citizenship, almost-free apartments and other economic assistance in South Korea, ethnic Chinese from the North are denied access to such benefits if they maintained Chinese nationality in North Korea.
About 30 of them have been designated as “stateless” in South Korea, after authorities detected their attempts to pose as North Korean nationals and detained them, observers say.
Photo: AP
The “stateless” designation makes it extremely difficult for them to get jobs and receive basic government-provided services.
Four of them subsequently applied for refugee status in 2019, saying they wanted better treatment because their families have lived in North Korea for generations and suffered similar political suppression and economic difficulties to what most ordinary North Korean citizens face.
However, the South Korean Ministry of Justice last week notified them that their refugee claims had been turned down, said Kim Yong-hwa, a North Korean defector-turned-activist who helped the four with their refugee applications.
Kim’s organization sent The Associated Press a photograph of the ministry notification to an applicant surnamed Yoon.
The notification said he did not appear “to have experienced threats that amounted to persecution in China and North Korea.”
It also said the ministry could not help but determine he is a Chinese national based on its review of his testimony and comments by South Korea’s spy agency.
Kim said the three other applicants received near-identical notifications.
The ministry did not immediately respond to requests to confirm whether the claims were rejected.
However, the rejections were widely expected, as South Korea’s acceptance rate for refugee status applications has been less than 2 percent in the past few years.
“It totally doesn’t make sense to rule that there was [no evidence] that they suffered oppressions in North Korea. They can get killed if they return to North Korea and get caught there,” Kim said.
Reached by telephone, Yoon and another applicant, Cho Guk-gyeong, confirmed the rejections.
“I have no hopes at all now as my refugee application was turned down,” Cho said in a statement provided by Kim. “I have nowhere to return. I want to live with a minimum level of human dignity.”
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