Korean Job Discussion Forums

[GaryCooper]

Whereas in the face of a serious food shortage and political repression, thousands of North Koreans have fled across the border to China;

Whereas hundreds, possibly thousands, of North Koreans have been detained by the Chinese authorities and forcibly returned across the border where they face arbitrary detention, torture, and even summary execution;

Whereas in 2004, Mr. Vitit Muntarbhorn, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in North Korea, concluded that because North Korea considers fleeing the country a criminal offense punishable by death, North Koreans who have fled to other countries should be considered `refugees sur place', and therefore China, as a signatory to 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees and its 1969 Protocol, should not repatriate refugees to North Korea;

Whereas the Chinese regime continues to violate its commitments under the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees and its 1969 Protocol by repatriating North Korean refugees against their will to North Korea, where such refugees face imprisonment, torture, and at times execution, for the crime of leaving their country, rather than allowing them safe passage to countries like the Republic of Korea where such refugees would have automatic citizenship, and the United States which has offered them resettlement;

Whereas Chinese security officials, rather than working with the humanitarian community to help these refugees, hunt down and jail humanitarian workers who try to feed and shelter refugees, including United States citizen Steve Kim of Huntington, New York, and South Korean, Japanese, and Chinese citizens;

Whereas the Chinese regime refuses to allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the internationally-recognized organization whose sole function is to help refugees, access to the North Korean refugees in China and denies the refugees access to the UNHCR and therefore to much needed assistance......;

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Whereas China is preparing to host the Summer Olympic Games in August 2008, the most honorable, venerated, and prestigious international sporting event, and China has selected `One World, One Dream' as a slogan for those games;

Whereas China should act consistently with the Olympic standard of preserving human dignity for its citizens and for the people of the Darfur region of Sudan, Burma, and North Korea;

Whereas the spirit of the Olympics, which is to bring together nations and people from all over the world in peace, is incompatible with Chinese actions; and

Whereas China continues to seriously abuse the rights of its citizens and continues to assist Sudan, Burma, and North Korea in committing human rights abuses against their citizens: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That--

(1) it is the duty and responsibility of the United States to take effective steps to stop serious human rights abuses by the Chinese regime against its citizens and to stop the Chinese regime from supporting serious human rights abuses by Sudan, Burma, and North Korea against their citizens; and

(2) it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States Government should take immediate steps to boycott the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in August 2008 unless the Chinese regime stops engaging in serious human rights abuses against its citizens and stops supporting serious human rights abuses by the Governments of Sudan, Burma, and North Korea against their citizens.