Falun Gong Practitioners in South Korea in Legal Limbo

(http://youtu.be/dRZca-FvVTQ)



We have been reporting on a Falun Gong practitioner living in South Korea, Jin Jingzhe - he was arrested and is currently detained. He’s one of about a hundred Chinese Falun Gong practitioners who are at risk of being deported because so far, the South Korean government has not accepted their pleas for refugee status.

Since 1999 the Chinese Communist Party has been persecuting people who practice Falun Gong - a spiritual practice based on the principles of truth, compassion and tolerance. Human rights workers like Choi Wongeun worry that they will face torture and imprisonment if they are returned to China.

[Choi Wongeun, NANCEN, Refugee Human Rights Center]:
“The Korean government has to consider Falun Gong practitioners on a humanitarian basis. Also the Chinese regime shouldn’t retaliate diplomatically or politically against the country because they take refugee status in a foreign country.”

The Korean Ministry of Justice has overseen the deportation of Falun Gong practitioners. But appeals against the deportations are now taking place in the Administrative Courts.

[Kim Namjoon, Human Rights Lawyer]:
“I think there are problems with the compulsory deportation procedure approach to Falun Gong practitioners. They deal them too strictly compared to other refugee cases with administrative discretion. And this has some relationship with international politics. Also, there is a court issue. I worry that the court will consider politics as the Korean Ministry of Justice did."

The appeals process has not stopped arrests though, as shown by the recent arrest of Jin Jingzhe.

In 1992, South Korea signed the United Nations Convention and Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, forbidding deportation of individuals who will face persecution if returned to their native country. But in South Korea, Falun Gong refugees are still threatened with deportation to China.

[Suh Kyungsuk, Christian Social Responsibility Group]:
“We have to choose, except to observe with intense concern, whether the Korean government can stand with human rights awareness.”

So members of South Korea's human rights community are on edge as they watch yet another Chinese refugee arrested and awaiting deportation.

NTD News, South Korea.

From - http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/news_china/2011-09-28/falun-gong-practitioners-in-south-korea-in-legal-limbo.html