Prague, 28 July: Five refugees who fled from North Korea to China have found asylum in the Czech Republic, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Jana Malikova told CTK today.

The refugees faced a risk of being expelled home, so Czech Interior Minister Ivan Langer offered them a temporary residence in the Czech Republic, Malikova added.

The North Koreans should stay in the Czech Republic until they leave for the United States that has promised political asylum to them.

The Czech government decided about the country’s participation in the programme of refugees’ re-settlement in late June.

Malikova said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had asked Langer for urgent aid over the refugees in China at the end of last week.

“These people could not be granted any form of international protection. On the contrary, they were threatened with immediate expulsion to North Korea that is infamous for the totalitarian regime,” Malikova noted.

I wish for the day I do not have to search for every tiny little news release about successful refugees everyday.

My hope is that things like this become a daily occurance.

In the run-up towards the Olympics, the Chinese Government decides to that they prefer less Koreans around

Changchun, China — With the Beijing Olympics ahead, the Chinese Communist Party have been targeting defectors in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, leaving the defector community in China greatly unsettled.

The police in Jilin have been inspecting foreigners’ identification in the Yanbian Prefecture since April in advance of the approaching Beijing Olympics torch relay, which arrived in Yanji on the 16th of this month. In this process, at least 100 defectors were hauled to the Chinese police, and more than 20 were arrested in Wangqing, Yanbian Prefecture on July 10th.

Chung Myung Sook (41, pseudonym), who came to Jilin after escaping arrest by the Chinese police while residing in Wangqing, said, “In Wangqing alone, eighteen women, two men, and even children were taken. Among the defectors who were arrested, the women had been living with Chinese spouses for at least several years, which were known to the police office holding jurisdiction.”

Chung relayed the situation, “Last March, when rumors began that inspections of border transgressors would be toughened up with the Beijing Olympics ahead, the defector women in the Wangqing area went to the police station themselves to verify this fact. They were told that “Married women will not be detained,” and additionally, “This inspection was not ordered by the neighborhood police station or the local governing party, but is headed by the Jilin Provincial Communist Party.”

It seems in every Asian country has an ethnocentric view of the world. Until China and other Asian countries care about other people other then their own, human rights will be an exclusively western concept.

A refugee has been granted passage to the US from, of all places, Russia

A North Korean refugee in Russia has been given asylum in the U.S. Having gained approval of both the Russian and U.S. governments, Han Dong-man, who had been a logger in Siberia, left for the U.S. on Tuesday afternoon. He has been under protection of the Moscow Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees since October last year. He is the first North Korean defector to find asylum in the U.S. from Russia, which has refused to recognize North Korean defectors as refugees and approve their seeking of asylum to the U.S. for fear of harming diplomatic ties with the North. Han is reportedly to settle near Los Angeles.

This is significant as Russia, like China, do not recognize North Koreans as refugees. While I am dismayed that the asylum process is still at a snail’s pace, it is encouraging that there are still many options (albeit all dangerous ones) for North Koreans seeking freedom.