Korea

United Nations NORTH KOREA: Letter About North Korea to United Nations

LETTER TO United Nations Secretary General


(Please feel free to copy, edit if and as desired and send to the United Nation Secretary General)

António Guterres
Secretary General
United Nations
1st Avenue
New York, NY 10017 USA

Your Excellency,

By repatriating North Korean refugees in China to North Korea, where they face imprisonment, torture and/or execution, China violates the United Nations Convention on Refugees Article 33: Prohibition of Expulsion or Return, which states:

"No Contracting State shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion."

If the violator were a weak African, Southeast Asian or Latin American nation, wouldn't you speak out against the violation and demand that UNHCR, which you used to lead, be allowed to care for the refugees? Yet because the violator is China, one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and a growing world power, you have kept quiet.

As the leader of the United Nations, it is your duty to stand up for the United Nations convention that protects refugees, the most helpless and vulnerable people the UN is entrusted to protect. Your unwillingness to confront the Chinese on this issue is unbecoming a United Nations Secretary General and betrays both the letter and the spirit of the United Nations charter.

Will you cap your illustrious political and diplomatic career ultimately as a coward who turned a blind eye to the atrocities of the powerful or as the principled champion who stood up to the powerful on behalf of those who couldn't speak for themselves?

Please stand up to China and call for it to end the forced repatriation of North Korean refugees.

Sincerely,

(Signed)

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