URGENT ACTION APPEAL
15 September 2005 UA 240/05 ''Disappearance''/fear of torture/fear of death penalty NORTH KOREA: Kang Gun, (m), aged 36 Kang Gun fled North Korea in 2000 and became a South Korean citizen. He is now believed to have been abducted by North Korean agents in China in March 2005, and taken to North Korea. He is now believed to be held in a National Security Agency (NSA) prison in the capital, Pyongyang, where he is at grave risk of torture, or of being executed. Kang Gun was helping North Koreans who had fled to China as a result of the food crisis in North Korea to travel on to South Korea when he was abducted. The Chinese authorities have forcibly returned hundreds of North Koreans, who have then faced detention, interrogation, torture and ill-treatment, and then sentenced to up to three years in prison, where conditions are appalling. Kang Gun had gone into the city of Longjing, in Jilin province, apparently after a tip-off from one of his close North Korean contacts. There it appears he was seized by North Korean security agents: he was taken to North Korea, and moved to Pyongyang in around May. In February 2004 Kang had passed on secretly filmed footage of life inside Yodok kwalliso (labor camp for political prisoners), in South Hamkyung province, to a Japanese TV company, which broadcast it. This is suspected to be part of the reason the North Korean agents abducted him. Kang had apparently been a mid-level officer in the NSA, and will have faced particularly harsh treatment because of this, after he was returned to North Korea. BACKGROUND INFORMATION Acute food shortages in North Korea have forced tens of thousands of people to flee across the border into China's north-eastern provinces, including Jilin, where Kang Gun was abducted, and many remain ''illegally'' in border areas living in appalling conditions: they receive no support or protection from the state and are vulnerable to physical, emotional and sexual exploitation. North Koreans who ''illegally'' cross or help others in crossing the North Korean border face heavy penalties such as torture and ill- treatment during long hours of interrogation. Besides Kang Gun, at least five South Korean nationals of North Korean origin have reportedly been abducted by North Korean agents in China. The total is suspected to be larger, as a number of other people are believed to have been abducted from China and other countries by North Korean secret agents. The Chinese government does not officially recognise these abductions by the NSA. Instead it reports them as ''voluntary return'' or ''abduction on North Korean territory.'' Under North Korean law, anyone who illegally crosses ''a frontier of the Republic'' faces up to three years in a kwalliso. This law is in clear breach of Article 12 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which North Korea is a state party, which states that ''Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own''. North Korean national Park Yong-chol was found to have been forcibly returned, in secret, from China in October 2004. There has been no news of him since, and he is at grave risk of being tortured and possibly executed (for details see UA 343/04, ASA 24/007/2004, 23 December 2004). Three members of a North Korean family who had been forcibly returned from China in August 2003 were tortured and later sentenced to kwalliso terms ranging from five to 10 years. There has been no news of them since October 2004. (UA 311/04 issued 19 November 2004) RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible: - urging the North Korean authorities to make public information concerning the whereabouts of Kang Gun; - urging them to ensure that Kang Gun is not imprisoned or ill-treated solely for leaving North Korea; - if he is detained, calling for him to be released immediately and unconditionally, unless he is to be charged with a recognizably criminal offence; - calling on the authorities to guarantee that he will not be tortured or ill-treated; - urging them to ensure that all detainees are humanely treated, and to investigate all allegations of torture and other human rights abuses promptly and impartially and bring those responsible to justice. APPEALS TO: Chairman Kim Jong-il National Defence Commission Pyongyang Democratic People's Republic of Korea Salutation: Dear Chairman COPIES TO: Ambassador Park Gil-yeon Office of the Permanent Mission of North Korea (DPRK) to UN 820 Second Avenue, 13th Floor New York, N.Y. 10017 Fax: 1 212 972 3154 Salutation: Dear Ambassador Mr CHUNG Dong-young Minister of Unification Ministry of Unification Central Government Complex 77-6 Sejong-no 1-ga, Jongno-gu Seoul 110-760, Republic of Korea Fax: 011 82 2 720 2432 Email: www.unikorea.go.kr Salutation: Dear Minister PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with the Colorado office, if sending appeals after 27 October 2005. Postage Rates:Postcards (max. size: 6'' x 4 1/4'') Airmail Letters and Cards (up to 1 oz.) Within the United States $0.23 $0.37 To Mexico and Canada $0.50 $0.60 To all other destination countries $0.70 $0.80 Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots movement that promotes and defends human rights. This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including contact information and stop action date (if applicable). Thank you for your help with this appeal. Urgent Action Network Amnesty International USA PO Box 1270 Nederland CO 80466-1270 Email: [email protected] http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/ Phone: 303 258 1170 Fax: 303 258 7881 ---------------------------------- END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL ----------------------------------
