Amnesty urges China to rethink refugee policy

The plight of North Korean refugees was highlighted in June when a family sought refuge in the Beijing office of the UNHCR

By CNN's Rose Tang in Hong Kong

(CNN) - The Human rights group Amnesty International has called on China to stop its practice of detaining and deporting North Korean refugees.

In an open letter to Chinese President Jiang Zemin Amnesty expressed its concern that Chinese authorities have been clamping down on a mass exodus of Koreans who have fled the famine-ravaged country.

Under a treaty with North Korea, Beijing -- Pyongyang's long time communist ally -- is normally obliged to return the fleeing North Koreans as economic migrants.

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Amnesty's letter urges Beijing to review its policy and give the North Korean refugees "a fair and independent asylum procedure".

According to the group, in recent weeks Chinese police have stepped up checks in people's homes near the border and imposed fines on those caught helping North Korean refugees.

"At the end of July, it was reported that around 50 North Koreans were being deported every two days from the border town of Longjing in Jilin province," the letter said.

Deportees 'hanged'

Those who were deported were rounded up and some were even hanged by authorities back home, said residents in Chinese border towns

"North Korean police wouldn't shoot them, bullets are expensive," an ethnic Korean resident of the Chinese city of Yanji city told CNN by phone.

"We heard families and relatives of the deported also get hanged."

The resident, who wished not to be named, said Chinese police have set up temporary detention centers near the border to keep the North Koreans before deporting them.

The number of refugees fleeing North Korea usually peaks in the winter when starvation drives many to cross the icy Tumen and Yalu rivers at the border with China, looking for food in Chinese towns and villages.

Begging

Most seek help in Chinese churches or send their children begging in the streets, she said.

"We can tell they're North Koreans," the resident said. "We give money to those kids. Their parents don't dare to come out."

Amnesty says tens of thousands of starving North Koreans have fled to the Chinese border provinces of Jilin and Liaoning over the past few years.

While some have found jobs in local farms and factories, others hide in the hills and resort to 'scavenging, begging and stealing'. Some women were even sold as brides, according to Amnesty.

The organization said Chinese police intensified the crackdown after a family of seven North Korean refugees sought asylum in June at the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Beijing.

Beijing dodged the family's demand for refugee status to avoid angering Pyongyang and allowed the family to leave for South Korea after intense lobbying from the UNHCR.