Help Save the Life of Kim Yong Hwa
Monday, July 6, 1998Friends,
This is to inform you of a North Korean refugee who smuggled to Japan and ended up in Fukuoka immigration detention camp after giving up the legal battle to be approved as a defector with the South Korean government. He now is waiting for a judgement from the Japanese government as to whether or not Japan will consider him as political refugee and we have until Thursday this week.
My wife, Yeri, and I have spent some time gathering facts such as speaking with representatives of the Human Right's Group for North Koreans which is trying to help Kim Yong Hwa, reviewing papers received from them, and cross checking them and even making many international calls to Korea.
On, Monday, July 6 Yeri flew to Fukuoka to meet with Kim Yong Hwa and as a coincidence was able to attend a press conference regarding Mr. Kim. She again cross checked with him a few points that were not quite clear to her including one important one - a fight with his boss in regards to his boss trying to frame him for the responsibility for the delay of a train headed for Pyongyang loaded with sand gold dug up at Sangyong mine located at Huhchun-gun, Hamkyong Namdo and later to be donated to Kim Jung Il.
Yeri liked him a lot. He comes across genuine, well educated and spoke honestly. According to Yeri, it's a pity that good person like him has to suffer so much. According to Kim Yong Hwa's lawyer, the Ministry of Justice still takes a position that Kim Yong Hwa's nationality is Chinese citing as evidence the temporary passport that the Chinese embassy in Seoul issued at the request of Seoul immigration office to allow his passage to China.
Kim Yong Hwa's Chinese ID was the fake one he purchased from Chinese police as the only means to survive in China as a North Korean escapee. While Kim Yong Hwa was going through the legal battle with the South Korean government to receive North Korean defectors status - according to Kim Yong Hwa, he was the first case - five North Korean defectors who settled in South Korea testified KimYong Hwa as being a North Korean national.
In addition, a South Korean Diet member Kim Il Joo, who fled to South during the war and also who happened to come from the same clan in the same town as Kim Yong Hwa came, went as far as becoming his guarantor and took legal responsibility for Kim Yong Hwa for two years until he escaped to Japan. Under Kim Il Joo's legal guarantee, Kim Yong Hwa was released from the detention camp and was able to live a normal life for two years.
Regardless, the South Korean immigration office had to label Kim Yong Hwa as naturalized Chinese and issue a deportation order, which resulted in Kim Yong Hwa running away again to smuggle into Japan.
Kim Yong Hwa was able to stay at Fukuoka immigration detention center only until Thursday last week. He has since been transferred to another detention center in Nagasaki-ken. We have received a verbal promise from Japanese Immigration that they will not deport him until the end of July. If he is sent back to China as Japanese government asserts, he will be automatically sent back to North Korea where he will be tortured and executed.
We are now appealing to Amnesty International's London office (info@amnesty.org.uk )to look into this matter and see if we can find refuge for Mr. Kim in the West.
If you can send an e-mail of support for this effort to Amnesty International, please do so. Yeri and I are willing to try to answer all questions at any time of the night or day. But time is of the highest essence - we have only to the end of July at the latest. Please help in any way your conscience dictates.
Sincerely,
Yeri and Tom Coyner
Friends in Tokyo
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Page Updated July 16, 1998