North Korea executes four returned refugees: activist

SEOUL - Agence France-Presse

US congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, shows Korean letters written by her reading "I am also a refugee," as South Korean lawmaker Park Sun-Young (L), an outspoken critic of North Korea's human rights abuses, helps her during a joint protest in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul on May 24, 2012. AFP Photo

North Korea has publicly executed four refugees who were repatriated by China and sent 40 others to its notorious prison camps, a South Korean activist said today.
 
China has repatriated 44 fugitives from its communist neighbour in recent months, said Kim Heung-Kwang, who heads NK Intellectuals Solidarity, a Seoul-based defectors' group.
 
Four of them were executed and 40 sent to camps for political prisoners, he told a seminar. South Korean rights groups say there are six political prison camps in the North holding around 200,000 detainees.
 
Kim said he had obtained his information from a source inside the North, but gave no details. The South's unification ministry, which is in charge of cross-border affairs, declined to comment.
 
Tens of thousands of North Koreans looking to escape hunger or repression in their communist homeland have fled in recent years. Virtually all cross the border to China, which repatriates those fugitives it catches.
 
Beijing says they are economic migrants rather than refugees, a policy criticised by international rights groups.
 
The refugees often travel on from China to southeast Asian countries, hoping to fly from there to South Korea. Last week 19 refugees were arrested in Thailand on charges of illegal entry.