"If Canada returns me to South Korea, I'm a dead man."

カナダが脱北者の難民申請に冷淡になったのはなぜ？
金正日のボディガードを務めた脱北者の難民申請がカナダに却下され、韓国に送還されれば命が危ないと訴えている https://t.co/M0BtuP1Gq1

— ニューズウィーク日本版 (@Newsweek_JAPAN) September 4, 2020

While speaking with the Toronto Star, Lee Young-guk, 57, the North Korean regime tried to kidnap him while living in South Korea, and told the publication through an interpreter, "If Canada returns me there, I'm a dead man." 

 In an email sent to Newsweek, Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division, stated that, "Lee Young-guk survived the deadly political prison camps of North Korea so it is astonishing that Canada somehow doesn't believe his narrative is credible.

"South Korean President Moon Jae-in has bent over backwards to try to assuage the North Korean government in his meandering efforts to achieve peace, and this has included cracking down on North Korean defectors who have settled in the South," the email added. "So Lee Young-guk has legitimate concerns about how Seoul will treat him on return, especially if North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un demands he be returned. Canada should not consider sending Lee Young-guk anywhere without getting concrete guarantees on paper that under no circumstances can he ever be sent back to North Korea."