Fumiaki Yamada's wife joins the plea for mercy on Society to Help Returnees to North Korea (HRNK) and North Korean detainees in Shanghai. Her first challenge is to persuade Japanese diplomats in Shanghai:
The wife of a Japanese nongovernmental organization (NGO) head detained in China has said she will visit China Saturday in hopes of meeting her husband.Mariko Yamada, 52, wife of Fumiaki Yamada, 54, who was arrested in Shanghai for allegedly helping North Koreans to illegally enter China, said Wednesday that she and some of her husband's colleagues will meet officials of the Japanese Consulate General in Shanghai to learn more about his situation.
Though the power of condemnation lies with the Chinese, Japan's unhelpful disinterest is obvious from the most detailed account of Yamada's underground railroad's final hours:
HRNK members said Yamada and his associates visited the library of the Japanese cultural center in Shanghai on Aug. 6 to see if it would be an appropriate safe haven.Yamada decided the presence of security guards there made the library a risky prospect. The plans were changed to seek asylum at a school in Shanghai for children of Japanese. The group started out for the school on Aug. 7, but Shanghai authorities detained the members before they reached the school grounds.
Yamada is the second Japanese NGO activist helping North Korean defectors to be detained by Chinese authorities since October 2002.
Others who have helped North Koreans said new approaches must be explored.
Lee Young Hwa, who heads Osaka-based RENK, or Rescue the North Korean People! Urgent Action Network, said NGOs may have reached their limits on what they could do to help North Koreans.
"If we are detained, we will not be able to help those fleeing North Korea,'' Lee said. "The international community will have to offer further support. The frigid attitude of the Japanese government toward refugees and North Korean defectors is encouraging the strong-arm tactics of the Chinese authorities.''
The article reports a similar incident that ended in an NGO leader's deportation. The North Koreans with him weren't as lucky. Peace or conscience: Japan can keep only one undisturbed.