Tim A. Peters

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The Rev. Timothy A. Peters, an American humanitarian aid worker living in Seoul, South Korea, operates Helping Hands Korea,^[1] a part of the Family Care Network,^[2] and is widely regarded one of the world's foremost advocates for human rights in North Korea. Conversely, he was also on open record ^[3] as an admitted member of The Family International^[4], a controversial group widely known as a sex cult with a history of human rights violations^[5], and the Family Care Foundation to which he is linked is an organization with inextricable ties to the same cult. ^[6] ^[7]

Peters originally came to Korea in 1975 and soon became an opponent of South Korea's military dictatorship. The military regime of President Chun Doo-hwan later expelled him from South Korea for handing out anti-government leaflets. He returned to South Korea in the late 1980s. Later, when North Korea's disfavored classes were struck by a famine that ultimately killed an estimated 2.5 million people,^[8]. Peters established the Ton a Month Club to help feed the North Korean people. He founded Helping Hands Korea in 1996, and later became an activist in the "underground railroad," helping North Korean refugees to escape to South Korea or other countries via China. Sometimes, Peters personally participated in these clandestine missions inside China. As it was the policy of the Chinese government that the North Koreans were in fact economic migrants, the refugees and those assisting them were subject to arrest and lengthy detentions in Chinese jails. The refugees themselves would be deported back to North Korea, which considers defection to be a capital offense. China's policy was criticized by the U.N. Special Rapporteur in a 2005 report that described the North Korean escapees as "refugees sur place,"^[9], putting the Chinese position in violation of its obligations under the 1951 Convention on Refugees,^[10] which China signed.

Rev. Peters was featured in the CNN documentary "Undercover in the Secret State"^[11] ^[12] in 2005. He testified about human rights conditions facing North Korean refugees before the U.S. Congress in 2005,^[13] and was recently featured in a lengthy article in Time Asia^[14]. His work has also been featured in numerous newspaper articles.^[15] By early 2006, Rev. Peters had become an outspoken critic of the UNHCR,^[16] and of the U.S. State Department, which human rights activists accused of foot-dragging and reluctance to assist North Korean refugees hiding in Asia, despite the statutory requirements of the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004.^[17] Peters's public activism played a key role in the U.S. decision to admit the first six North Korean refugees into the United States in May 2006.^[18]