A Thai provincial court has dropped charges against 91 North Korean asylum seekers arrested earlier this week in a Bangkok suburb for illegally entering the country after traveling through China and Laos, court officials confirmed Friday, REPORTED DPA. The Thanyaburi Provincial Court on Thursday dropped charges against the 91 refugees, including 52 women and 13 children, but ordered them to seek refuge in a third country, presumably South Korea. "The North Koreans will remain in Thanyaburi jail until the leave the country, but they will not be fined," said an anonymous court source at Thanyaburi, 40 kilometres north of Bangkok. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Bangkok welcomed the court's decision. "We trusted that Thailand would not deport them back to North Korea or to China because the Thai government has an excellent track record in protecting refugees," said UNHCR spokesperson Kitty McKinsey. The asylum seekers were rounded up Tuesday evening at three apartment houses in Pathumthani, about 40 kilometres north of Bangkok. They reportedly entered Thailand at Mae Sai in Chiang Mai province after traveling through China to Laos. Thailand's past policy has been to charge North Koreans with illegal entry and to deport them to third countries, primarily South Korea, after they have paid fines and served one-month jail terms. The asylum seekers may also be granted official refugee status by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in which case they may be sent to a third country without serving a jail sentence in Thailand. Sixteen of the 175 North Koreans arrested in Thailand last August were granted formal refugee status with the UNHCR as Persons of Concern, excluding them from trials in Thailand. UNHCR's office in Bangkok refused to comment on the fresh batch of refugees. Thousands of North Koreans attempt to flee the poverty-wracked dictatorship where food shortages are believed to have caused widespread hunger and death. The prickly authoritarian government has almost no tolerance for citizens who question its orders, let alone show dissent.
