GENEVA, South Korea on Tuesday recommended China protect the human rights of North Koreans who defected to the communist neighbor at a United Nations review session here.

Yun Seong-deok, South Korean ambassador to the U.N. office in Geneva, called on Beijing to provide North Korean defectors with the required protections and humanitarian support at China’s fourth universal periodic review (UPR) held under the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

It is the first time for South Korea to raise the issue of North Korean defectors’ human rights at the U.N. peer-review process against China.

UPR is a mechanism that calls for each U.N. member state to go through a peer review of its human rights record every 4.5 years.

Yun also asked China not to forcibly repatriate North Korean defectors and consider generating its own refugee law as part of efforts to carry out the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention, which outlines refugees’ rights and the international standards of treatment for their protection.

South Korea’s recommendation came amid reports that China has repatriated North Korean defectors despite the possibility that they could face harsh treatment back at home.

In the review, however, Pang Kwang-hyok, Pyongyang’s deputy permanent representative to the U.N. in Geneva, said the North highly appreciates the political system and the path for economic growth chosen by the Chinese people and China has achieved the equality of human rights and economic prosperity through modernization.

China has been accused of sending back North Korean refugees based on its view that they have illegally crossed the border into China for economic reasons.

Source: Yonhap News Agency