Russia: Update to Response to Information Request RUS30450.E of 13 November 1998 on the treatment of ethnic Koreans and the state protection available to them (January 1998 - November 1998)

An 18 November 1998 letter sent to the Research Directorate by the programme officer of the Memorial Human Rights Centre in Moscow states:

When travelling within Stavropol territory I encountered with some activists of Korean cultural associations, i.e. my experience in this area is also limited.

The overwhelming majority of Koreans who reside in Russia are Russian citizens or former Soviet nationals who can obtain Russian citizenship by a simplified procedure. Koreans were displaced from the Russian Far East in 1938 to Central Asia. Some of them migrated to the southern regions of Russia in 1960s and worked there in agriculture as manual labourers. Some ethnic Koreans before the break-up of the Soviet Union were successful in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in terms of professional or military career and then shifted to Russia and joined nomenclatura or academic elite of the all-union level.

As far as I know, ethnic Koreans have not been victims of deliberate discrimination encouraged or conducted by the authorities in the regions where they usually reside. Unlike Turks, Armenians, Georgians they are not perceived by extremist nationalist groups and nationalist media as 'ethnic enemies'. I know, that in some regions of the Russian South (Stavropol, Kalmyk Republic) those Koreans who rent or own farms, become victims of criminal business like racket. This social group of Koreans usually prefer not to address any complaints in such cases to the authorities and to solve the problems by another means, thus it is not easy to get any information on the problems of this kind. I know only one case when Koreans were directly involved in communal violence, in 1991 there was a clash in one village in Saratov province between the local Russian and Korean youth.

In general, public opinion and the authorities are still loyal towards Koreans. Some Korean organizations discussed the perspective of their return to the place where Koreans had been deported from in 1938. Initiatives of this kind were opposed by some newspapers. Anyway, such debates did not have any negative consequences for the Koreans who reside in the Far East, the local phobias are aimed at the ethnic Chinese.

A small number of Koreans, who live in Sakhalin Island, are stateless persons. They were deported by the Japanese administration from the Korean peninsula to Sakhalin in 1930-40s, remained there when the Soviet troops came in 1945, but didn't get any right of gaining citizenship. They are still disenfranchized in many respects. Unfortunately, we do not have detailed information about this group and don't have an opportunity of conducting a field research in the Far East of Russia.

In an attachment to Response to Information Request RUS29083.E of 19 March 1998, the programme officer states:

The 'Memorial' Human Rights Centre is a non-governmental, non-profit organization based in Moscow devoted to investigating and publicizing human rights abuses and educating the public about proposed remedies to alleviate human rights problems. The 'Memorial' HRC founded in 1992 constitutes a branch of the 'Memorial' historical, charitable and enlightenment society, one of the oldest Russian NGOs (established in 1988). The 'Memorial' HRC activities develop in the following main directions: the problems of refugees in Russia, persecutions on political ground in the CIS, discrimination against ethnic minorities in Russia, the 'hot spots' of the former Soviet Union.  

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

Reference

The Memorial Human Rights Centre, Moscow. 18 November 1998. Letter sent to the Research Directorate by the programme officer.