Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church members are seeking protections in Thailand after giving up on making a new home in South Korea
Jun Michael Park for The Wall Street Journalto seek asylum in South Korea has now traveled to Thailand to ask the United Nations’ refugee agency for protection from religious persecution.
The church has given up on seeking asylum in South Korea, where the members had lived since leaving the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen between late 2019 and early 2020. Church members have had their asylum claims rejected a number of times and decided not to continue appealing through South Korean courts due to the low likelihood of success and what they felt was increasing harassment from Chinese officials, Mr. Pan said.
By traveling to Thailand, church members are seeking to appeal directly to the U.N. refugee agency. The agency’s office in Seoul isn’t authorized to conduct the legal and administrative processes for determining the status of refugees, as South Korea is a party to U.N. treaties on refugees and its government conducts its own screening of asylum seekers. The U.N. agency itself can determine refugee status for applicants in Thailand, which isn’t a party to the treaties.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Chinese government’s publicity arm, the State Council Information Office, as well as the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, which handles religious affairs, didn’t immediately respond to queries. Church members voted to leave Shenzhen in the fall of 2019, after which they decamped in small groups to Jeju, a Hawaii-like resort island off the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula, where they sought help from local church groups.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
For NFT pawn shops, price discovery is the holy grailplatforms that allow folks to post their NFTs as collateral for a crypto denominated loan are on the rise.
Read more »
'Harley Quinn' Episode 8 Sees Harley Take a Wild Trip Into Batman's PsycheHarleyQuinn Season 3 Episode 8, 'Batman Begins Forever,' shows a strange but healing trip into the mind of Bruce Wayne.
Read more »
Kindergarten Class Burning Through 6 Hamsters A YearLIGONIER, PA—Attributing the high levels of attrition to a combination of handling errors and poor oversight, Holy Trinity School kindergarten teacher Alyssa D’Orazio told reporters today that her class is currently burning through hamsters at a rate of six per year, with every indication that the figure will rise.…
Read more »
Ukraine nuclear plant near front lines loses last power line amid fears of disasterUkraine's Zaporizhzhia power plant lost its final main external power line Saturday, days after a United Nations team inspected the Russian-occupied facility.
Read more »