The article was originally published by Chosun Ilbo and translated by OKN Correspondent.
“It was hard to believe that a human rights lawyer (former President Moon Jae-in) sent the fishermen back to such a terrible fate,” said the Chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the US Congress regarding the 2019 forced repatriation of North Korean defectors. It was a direct criticism by the head of the US Congressional human rights organization regarding the anti-human rights behavior under the Moon administration.
The Moon administration repatriated the two North Korean fishermen who expressed their intention to defect because they were murderers who killed their colleagues. Three days after the defection, the government put blindfolds on them, tied them with a rope, and handed them over to North Korea. It is said that the Moon administration first expressed its willingness to hand them over by sending a personal letter inviting Kim Jong-un to the ROK-ASEAN meeting, even before North Korea requested an extradition. The Moon administration repatriated the fishermen only to have the inter-Korean summit performance.
“Do you have to protect the bizarre murderers?” the Democratic Party said. However, even a murderer is a South Korean citizen if he expresses his intention to defect. Thus, this case violates the Constitution and the human rights principles that forbid forced repatriation. The government can punish the criminals according to the South Korean judicial procedures.
Former President Moon is the one who defended the Korean-Chinese sailors who brutally killed 11 of their colleagues in 1996—the “Pesca Mar” incident. He defended them until the end, saying, “We also should embrace the perpetrators.” During the Roh Moo-hyun administration, he even succeeded in giving them a special pardon (commutation).
Why did he “defend human rights” then and “expel” this time? His attitude towards human rights is 180 degrees different depending on the political goals.
The Moon administration pushed ahead with the anti-leaflet law, which the international community, including the United Nations and even former communist countries, opposed. The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the US Congress as well as the US State Department criticized it in its human rights report. However, officials from the Moon administration called it “interference in domestic affairs.”
The Moon administration also enforced the Press Arbitration Law, violating freedom of expression and authorizing punitive damages. It also hid the opposition letter from the UN Human Rights Office. It hastily called the South Korean official who was shot and burnt by the North Korean military a defector to the north and did not take any action (to protect him). Those who advocated human rights and democratization as their badges ignored human rights whenever necessary.
The Moon administration did not join the UN resolution on North Korean human rights for the past four years. It also cut off subsidies to North Korean human rights organizations and closed the office of the North Korean human rights foundation. The government never appointed a special ambassador for North Korean human rights and was silent on human rights violations in Hong Kong as well as in Xinjiang and Tibet.
Former President Moon was absent when UN member states condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He used “human rights” only to attack his domestic political opponents and threw them away whenever it was politically necessary. This is the true picture of so-called human rights lawyers.
