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Category: Activism

November 29, 2006

Welcome Home

Life Funds for North Korean Refugees reports that Choi Young-Hun, who has been in a Chinese prison for the last four years for helping North Korea refugees, has been released: Choi was met at Incheon Airport this evening by close family members.  And although he appears extremely weak following his imprisonment, he took the time to express his thanks to all those around the world who have supported him with their prayers, letters and other contributions.
Categories Activism/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
November 7, 2006

Kang Chol Hwan Selected as One of Time’s ‘Asian Heroes’

In person,  Kang is unimpressive.  Like  all of the North Koreans I’ve met, he’s strikingly  small, frail, reserved, and downcast.  One fears that some loud noise might frighten him off.  He makes a  deeper impression through the written word: At 10, Kang and his family had already spent a year in Yodok, a North Korean labor camp, sent there because his grandfather, a manager at a state-owned agency, had been accused of disloyalty to the regime of the late dictator...
Categories Activism/Human Rights
September 26, 2006

Norbert Vollertsen Reports Being Assaulted in Seoul

Norbert Vollertsen writes to report that he was attacked by a gang of thugs in downtown Seoul and intentionally run over by a taxi.  He is reporting a less-then-stellar police response; they blamed him for being drunk (which he vehemently  denies) and suggests that some of his attackers may have been corroborating witnesses to that side of the story.  Well, I wasn’t there, but two questions come to mind.  First, Norbert claims that he hobbled out of the hospital on...
Categories Activism/Korean Law
September 18, 2006

Yoduk Story Update

Tickets are now on sale at this link. Here are two background reports from the BBC and the L.A. Times. There have been numerous reports on “Yoduk Story” on this blog, including on alleged attempts by South Korea to censor it. Previously, Horace Jeffery Hodges had commented that the English translation for the YS production in Seoul was, well, Konglishy. After making some inquiries with people who are involved in bringing YS to America, I’m pleased to pass on that...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Korean Society
September 14, 2006

Yoduk Story Update

There is a change of date and location to report: The plans have now been finalized to bring Yoduk Story to the USA! Opening night will be 7:30 pm on Wednesday, October 4, 2006, at the Strathmore located in North Bethesda, Maryland. Performances will be held on October 4, 5, 6 at 7:30 pm, and we also hope to plan a special Friday, October 6 performance at 3 pm especially for students. Tickets will be available for sale beginning this...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Korean Society
September 3, 2006

Breaking the Blockade

[Update: Andrei Lankov has a must-read piece on radio broadcasting in the Asia Times Online.] Where there is demand, there will be a supply, and the trickle of alternative information to North Korea, though small, shows signs of persistence and of having a receptive market. In addition to Radio Free NK and Open Radio for North Korea, there is now a Japan-based broadcaster, Shiokaze. The DailyNK interviews its director. Although their original focus is on sending messages to Japanese abductees,...
Categories Abductions/Activism/Appeasement/Censorship/Democracy/Japan & Korea/Reconstruction/Refugees/Resistance/Uncategorized
August 29, 2006

30 More N. Koreans Seek U.S. Asylum

From the Korea Herald: About 30 North Korean defectors are seeking asylum in the United States, Radio Free Asia quoted a mission leader working with refugees as saying yesterday. In an interview with the Wasington-based news channel, Rev. Cheon Ki-won of Durihana Mission said, “A second group of North Korean defectors will soon be entering the United States following the first six in May.” Cheon did not specify the identities of the defectors or their current whereabouts. “The number of...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Refugees
August 28, 2006

Welcome Home

A missionary who was imprisoned for 15 months after trying to aid North Korean refugees in China has returned home to a greeting of balloons and flowers from delighted relatives and friends. Wearing a baseball hat and dark sunglasses Monday night on his arrival at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the Rev. Phillip Jun Buck, 68, said returning home was like being in a “dream state.” A son, Jamin Yoon, 35, holding flowers as his father was swarmed by reporters, said his...
Categories Activism/China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
August 26, 2006

Lefkowitz: N.Korean Refugees Welcome in America

Updates: This chatroom for English-speaking expats in Thailand has pictures of the refugees and pages of outraged, sympathic comments. One of them points to this BBC story. The Thai government’s reaction is to increase patrols on the Mekong to keep the refugees out. Look at this baby’s face. Then try to comprehend what will happen to her if she is sent back to North Korea. . . ====== (original post follows) ====== With somewhere around 175 North Korean refugees in...
Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
August 23, 2006

An Open Letter to Ambassador Lee Tae-Shik on the 169 Refugees Held in Thailand

[Update: Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon is promising to take “appropriate measures,” which is encouraging in a vague sort of way. Foreign diplomats also sound optimistic. I infer that this was an underground railroad operation, and get the distinct idea that it was betrayed from within, as I also suspect in the case of a previous operation in Laos. Note also that various reports count as many as 179 refugees, most of them women and kids. Separately, Yonhap reports a...
Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Refugees
August 22, 2006

NK Freedom Watch, No. 5

Courtesy of Freedom House (with a hat tip to the staff there), here. Portions of this issue read like an indictment, which mainly makes it painfully obvious how far away we are from seeing a real one. The same methods of execution are applied to political criminals and economic criminals. When the death warrant is issued for a criminal, he is immediately cut off from all food supplies and his arms and legs are broken at the joints so that...
Categories Activism/Europe/Human Rights/Washington Views
August 8, 2006

More Details on the Washington Debut of ‘Yoduk Story’

[Previous] Via the Chosun Ilbo: A Korean musical about human rights abuses in North Korea’s notorious Yoduk concentration camp will be staged at the National Theater in Washington D.C. Producers of “Yoduk Story” said Monday the musical will debut there on Sept. 21. The 165-year old National Theater is right on Pennsylvania Avenue, about 100 m from the White House, and is one of the national symbols. There will be 10 shows until Oct. 1 at the theater. Suzanne Scholte,...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Korean Society/The Camps