Rights Group: Over 100 North Korean Defectors Disappear After Arrest by Secret Police
A report by the Seoul-based Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) reveals that over 100 North Korean defectors have vanished following arrests by North Korea’s secret police, with some individuals taken after attempting to contact family members in South Korea. The report, based on interviews with 62 North Korean escapees now in South Korea, outlines a disturbing pattern of enforced disappearances. According to TJWG, a database of 66 disappearance cases, developed in collaboration with international organizations, includes mapped routes showing detainee transfers.
Of the 113 individuals noted in the report, 80% were arrested within North Korea and the remainder in China or Russia, with roughly 30% of these arrests occurring since Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011. Nearly 40% were detained for attempted defections, and others disappeared after facing accusations like maintaining contact with people abroad. The report highlights that over 81% of these individuals vanished after being detained by North Korea’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), or “bowibu.” In one account, a recent defector reported that a friend was arrested for attempting to retrieve a Chinese cell phone and was later rumored to have died in custody.
TJWG’s project director, Kang Jeong-hyun, emphasized that these disappearances point to enforced disappearances and crimes extending beyond North Korea, involving China and Russia as well. This report comes just ahead of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review on North Korea. A previous U.N. report estimates up to 200,000 people are held in the North’s detention camps, with prisoners enduring forced labor, torture, starvation, and other human rights abuses.
North Korea’s leadership has long branded defectors as “human scum” and has increased border restrictions in recent years. Meanwhile, China’s government denies the presence of defectors, labeling them as illegal economic migrants. North Korea’s Association for Human Rights Studies recently dismissed a U.N. report detailing human rights violations as fabricated Western propaganda.
