About 4 years ago, the Egyptian young woman, Zainab, went through the experience of asylum in South Korea, during which she experienced many kinds of suffering, after the conditions of detention in Egypt pushed her to search for an alternative homeland.
Zainab's experience is one of dozens of Egyptian bitter experiences in seeking political asylum in South Korea, which is considered a kiss for those who have been pursued by court rulings and security follow-ups.
The number of Egyptian refugees in South Korea who are entitled to asylum on the basis of being at risk upon their return to Egypt is about 180 people, including about 18 families, of whom only 13 people obtained the right to asylum on a political basis, according to human rights defenders.
Egyptian refugees and asylum seekers spoke to Al-Jazeera Net about their cruel journey from Cairo to Seoul, and some of them had suffered security harassment in Egypt, but it was not possible to obtain comment from Cairo or Seoul regarding these certificates.
Threats and racism
Zainab Abdel-Ghani narrates in her testimony that she arrived in Seoul in early 2017 - after a "preliminary" court ruling was issued against her in Egypt on charges of joining a banned group - to live with her refugee husband there after he also fled after being pursued by the security forces in connection with a political case in 2014.
Once she arrived, Zainab was prevented from leaving the airport, and her husband was threatened with forced deportation, despite their submission of proof of their legal position and fears of a repeat of their arrest experience.
Zainab suffered psychologically and physically over a period of 10 days inside the corridors of the investigation, from threats of deportation and racism, as well as denial of her story, and after the expiration of the investigation period, the authorities agreed to enter the country in March 2017, to start a new life with her husband, during which they lived difficult days.
She said that her husband used to work daily, and sometimes he sat at home for weeks on end, and when they had a child, the husband suffered a work accident, after which he sat in the hospital that forged a medical report in favor of the labor company, while the company refused to grant him his financial dues, so that the family lived other harsh days.
Later, Zainab's husband was subjected to death threats on his Facebook account, due to his support for the protests of Egyptian asylum seekers in Seoul.
Zainab Abdel-Ghani lives a difficult life in Seoul, and her husband has been threatened with forced deportation (Al-Jazeera)
Land of illusions
Activist Abd al-Rahman Zaid's situation did not differ much. In his testimony, he described South Korea as "a land of illusions, not dreams."
Stability and the alternative homeland had Zaid's dreams upon his arrival in Seoul in April 2016, which he arrived after traveling between several Asian countries, after his departure from Egypt in pursuit of the background of his revolutionary activity in 2012, but what he touched in Seoul was shocking.
During the asylum application period, the Egyptian activist saw in South Korea "a country suffering from social problems, and official and popular racial discrimination against foreigners."
He was not spared the insults during the investigation by the staff of the Office of Refugee Affairs, who left neither big nor small without addressing them.
Despite the presentation of evidence supporting his position of being subjected to political and security violations in his country, the investigation authorities rejected his request more than once, justifying that his circumstances did not meet the definition of a refugee.
The Egyptian political activist was also surprised by what he called the complicity of a Korean human rights organization, a lawyer, and his last agent to defend him with the investigation authorities, who also concealed evidence of his case more than once, prompting him to enter an open strike in front of the Korean presidential office.
Zaid said that he met an officer in the Korean Intelligence Service, who tried to dissuade him from his efforts in all ways, noting also his call "in an indirect way to cooperate with the Korean authorities, and to provide them with information about the Muslim Brotherhood - which he does not belong to - and its members in South Korea."
But he confirmed his rejection of all these attempts, to start a new strike amid local media follow-up on his case, to face - according to what he emphasized - a series of pauses organized by "racist currents" that demanded the deportation of him and his comrades.
After a period of strike, his voice reached the Korean presidency, where he met the president's secretary who called on him to stop protesting and continue on the legal path, but Zaid returned again to strike with the "intransigence" of the senior Korean official.
Days later, I contacted him and others, head of the National Council for Human Rights in Korea, and after pledges of support, he ended the strike and the refugees left.
Two months later, his appeal was rejected again by the Korean Ministry of Justice, after the questions of one of its committees to examine the refugee appeals included "repeated provocations", in conjunction with stopping the renewal of his temporary residence and residency permits of others supporting him.
Security coordination
Zaid pointed to evidence that confirmed the existence of "security cooperation and coordination between Egypt and South Korea against Egyptian asylum seekers."
In early 2019, Bazid ended up leaving South Korea permanently, after 3 years of the asylum application struggle.
In turn, the political and human rights activist, Abdel Rahman Atef, confirmed the existence of security coordination to track down Egyptian refugees in South Korea, again accusing the local authorities of security restrictions and coordination with their Egyptian counterparts, which pursued a number of the families of the applicants.
Atef - who is an asylum seeker in South Korea - confirmed that the majority of refugees are detained upon arrival at the airport for a period of between 8 and 15 days, to investigate the validity of their statements, estimating the number of Egyptian political asylum seekers there that it does not exceed 180 individuals currently.
The majority of asylum seekers - including Atef - are surprised by the illegal reasons for refusal, including: "The applicant's departure from Egypt with a valid passport, which means that he has no problems with the Egyptian regime, completely unlike reality."
He explained that "this condition was set for people who were sentenced to death or life, in an inhuman or legal step," referring to the authorities ’intention to change the statements of some people or hide their documents.
He also accused the authorities of exploiting asylum seekers as cheap labor in hard work places, as well as taking advantage of them by imposing taxes and sums of money paid to renew residency and work contracts.
Atef worked as a lawyer and an activist, a major obstacle for him in Seoul that put him at the forefront of the suspended temporary residencies, in an attempt to force him to leave the country, before granting it to him later.
And his hope has not been interrupted, as the sit-ins organized by his and his comrades resulted in a simple breakthrough, which was to renew their residency every 6 months instead of 3, for a fee.
Atef filed an appeal on the reasons for the rejection, and has been waiting for nearly two years to respond to it, indicating that it is difficult to refuse, as he attached dozens of visual and paper documents in his file.
Most of the refugees are detained upon arrival at the airport for a period of between 8 and 15 days for investigation into their statements (Al-Jazeera)
Human rights demands
For his part, human rights researcher Ahmed Al-Attar criticized the Korean authorities' handling of the refugee issue, pointing to monitoring and documenting violations against asylum seekers from the first moment they arrived in Seoul.
Al-Attar called on the authorities to work to facilitate and facilitate procedures for granting asylum, and to work to speed up the study of files and not to put obstacles in front of them, and he also advised asylum-seekers from political opponents to work to provide all evidence of their exposure to violations in Egypt, not to violate the Korean immigration law, and to follow all means. Legal to obtain their right to asylum.