UN special rapporteur meets with relatives of victims of North

North Korea

Published: 20 Feb. 2022, 18:11

UN special rapporteur meets with relatives of victims of North

Tomás Ojea Quintana, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea, speaks with residents of an inter-Korean border town in Cheorwon County, Gangwon, on Saturday. [YONHAP]

Tomás Ojea Quintana, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea, met with a relative of the South Korean fisheries official killed by North Korean authorities in September 2020, in Seoul on Thursday.

The relatives have been requesting for over a year the disclosure of government records on how the official was killed. The Coast Guard at the time concluded the victim was defecting to the North when he was killed, a conclusion the victim’s family including his older brother Lee Rae-jin objected to.

The family filed an injunction to the Seoul Administrative Court in January 2021 to have access to the government records on how the victim died. The court ruled in November that the Blue House and the Coast Guard should disclose such information to the bereaved family.

The two institutions, however, appealed to the court, and the information has continued to be withheld from the family.

The records can be withheld for as long as the next 30 years, if they are designated presidential archives by the Moon Jae-in government.

Lee spoke with the JoongAng Ilbo exclusively about the meeting with Quintana on Thursday.

“He asked, ‘Why would the Blue House appeal such a case?’” Lee said, adding that Quintana said he will relay the situation to the United Nations.

Quintana also received from Lee his written petition to the UN Secretary General António Guterres, requesting the United Nations “investigate human rights violations and atrocities of both South and North Korea” in regards to the case.

“I requested the United Nations’ help to fight the Korean government’s intent to cover up information related to my brother's death,” Lee said.

Quintana had written to the Moon administration in November 2020, requesting the government provide sufficient information regarding the incident to the bereaved family.

The victim, a man who worked for the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries’ West Sea Fisheries Management Service, disappeared on Sept. 21, 2020, from a monitoring boat near the coast of Small Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea. He was found in North Korean waters the next day and was shot and killed by an individual on board a North Korean patrol boat, according to the South Korean government.

His body was likely cremated by the North Koreans, according to the Moon government. Moon and the Defense Ministry issued warnings to the North at the time, but no further public action was taken.

Quintana, who is is in Korea through Wednesday to collect information for a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council, also met with a relative of a South Korean citizen abducted to the North in an airplane hijacking case in December 1969. A total of 50 South Koreans were abducted, of whom 39 were returned to Seoul the next year. Eleven did not make it home, including a man named Hwang Won.

His son Hwang In-cheol met with Quintana on Thursday.

“I asked Quintana if he could officially and publicly demand the North Korean regime to return the 11 abductees,” Hwang told the JoongAng Ilbo on Thursday. “The Moon Jae-in administration, which has held three inter-Korean summits, has made no effort to resolve the abductee issue. I asked for assistance from the United Nations so we can put an end to the 52-year-long pain.”

Quintana, though he agreed with Hwang on the need to highlight the issue internationally, told him that there are difficulties in resolving the case because of the North’s continued unwillingness to cooperate with the United Nations to improve the human rights situation in the country, according to Hwang.

The UN special rapporteur also met with Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-moon and Vice Unification Minister Choi Young-joon on Wednesday.

He also traveled to Cherwon County, Gangwon, over the weekend to meet with residents and discuss with them the ban on flying anti-North leaflets. Quintana, along with three other rapporteurs at the UN, have expressed their concerns that a law passed in 2020 banning the anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets could infringe on individuals' freedom of expression.

Upon hearing from some residents on Saturday their grievances in relation to the leaflets' environmental damage, as well as the costs they have to bear to their individual security during times of heightened tension in the region of their residence, Quintana said that he does not completely oppose the law, but only a part of the law that outlines punitive measures on the violators.

He was reported to have said during the meeting that "freedom of expression may be limited when the expression can harm another individual or national security."

This was his seventh and possibly last visit to Korea, given his tenure which began in August 2016 is scheduled to end in July.

The special rapporteur will hold a press conference at the Korea Press Center on Wednesday.

Tomás Ojea Quintana, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea, center, Lee Rae-jin, brother of a South Korean official killed in North Korean waters in September 2020, left, and Kim Ki-yoon, his lawyer, right, meet at the the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Seoul on Thursday. [YONHAP]

BY PARK HYUN-JU, ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]