South Korea’s ruling party members and rights advocates are calling on the government to reopen a 2019 case of the repatriation of two North Korean fishermen, accusing the previous government of trying to curry favour with Pyongyang.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office last month, has been revisiting several defection cases after criticizing what he called his predecessor Moon Jae-in’s “submissive” North Korea policy and vowing to boost support for defectors during the election campaign.
Yoon’s ruling party lawmakers, rights advocates and supporters have called for a new investigation of the fishermen’s case, accusing Moon of contravening the men’s constitutional and human rights as he tried to improve ties with Pyongyang.
Photo: Reuters
The Moon government deported the fishermen, calling them “dangerous criminals” who killed 16 other colleagues aboard their vessel while crossing the sea border and said they would cause harm if they were accepted into South Korean society.
Officials at the time said that there was an “unfortunate event” between the crewmen due to an abusive captain, without elaborating.
However, Yoon’s party, and defector and human rights groups have decried the decision, saying it not only jeopardized the fishermen’s lives, but also contravened South Korea’s constitution, which stipulates that all North Koreans are South Korean citizens.
The fate of the two men is not known, but defectors from the isolated state face harsh punishment if caught or repatriated, including public execution.
“Defection is not a light crime in North Korea, but the South Korean government even said publicly that they are murderers and forcefully deported them even though they insisted on staying,” said Tae Young-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who now is a lawmaker with Yoon’s party. “The two young men were most likely executed, based on double charges of defection and murder.”
An official at the South’s Ministry of Unification responsible for inter-Korean affairs said that the repatriation decision was “clearly wrong,” promising to cooperate with a prosecutors’ office in Seoul, which he said is re-examining the case.
“It might constitute a crime,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. “They are constitutionally South Korean citizens, therefore we should have accepted them, given the penalties they would get back there.”
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS