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Category: Activism

February 15, 2010

LiNK Update: Now in 4th Place!

LiNK’s campaign to win $250,000 from Pepsi for a refugee resettlement facility has now moved into 4th place, up two spots from yesterday. The momentum comes just one day after GI Korea and Kushibo join in, calling for their readers to vote for LiNK. Coincidence? Of course, there could always be other possibilities. Lisa Ling is also calling for people to vote for LiNK. Lisa Ling: Cast Your Pepsi Refresh Vote for LiNK from LiNK Global on Vimeo. Two more...
Categories Activism/Refugees
February 11, 2010

Help LiNK Win $250,000

[Update: Thanks to all of you who voted, to Sonagi for posting at The Marmot’s Hole, and to the Marmot readers who have now voted LiNK into 6th place. To vote, click the clever logo on the sidebar.] One of the worthiest organizations trying to help the people of North Korea is Liberty in North Korea, or LiNK, whose President Hannah Song, sends the following request: LiNK is currently up for a grant from Pepsi for $250,000! In a little...
Categories Activism/Refugees
January 21, 2010

Benefit Concert for Stateless Orphans in China

Last Saturday night, January 16th, friend Lauren Walker put together an intimate evening of music at Yogiga Gallery in the Hongdae area of Seoul.  Though by “intimate” I do not mean quiet. “A Night for North Koreans: Stateless Orphan Benefit Concert” raised over 700,000 won (~US$617) for an orphanage in China. Possibly 10,000 or more children of North Korean mothers and Chinese fathers are stateless, because they cannot be registered with the Chinese authorities, lest the mothers be caught and...
Categories Activism/China/Human Rights/Refugees
January 10, 2010

Whoa. I Think We Just Found Robert King.

A U.S. envoy says that the human rights situation in North Korea must improve before the country can normalize relations with the United States. President Barack Obama’s special envoy on North Korean human rights Robert King is visiting South Korea this week to discuss the issue with government officials. King said of North Korea, ”It’s one of the worst places in terms of lack of human rights. The situation is appalling.” He also said that the situation is preventing the...
Categories Activism/Human Rights
January 8, 2010

For the Love of Christ, People, Please Stop Walking Into North Korea!

Yes, it has happened again. Link in Korean only so far. The man is said to be a South Korean national in his 30’s or 40’s. Ten North Korean guards were there to welcome him, and one gobsmacked Chinese taxi driver was there to see him off. I should note that it’s not confirmed yet why this guy crossed or what his plan was, so I’m speculating. Well, I’ll admit it: if enough people do this, it certainly will get...
Categories Activism/Human Rights
December 30, 2009

LiNK Needs Your Help to Rescue One Hundred North Korean Refugees

I’m always glad to post updates on LiNK fund-raisers; they’re one of the most dedicated, effective, smart-thinking activist groups working on North Korea issues. This season, they’re launching the One Hundred campaign: Up to 300,000 North Koreans are hiding in the underground today. Most are looking for an opportunity to escape but cannot fund their own journey. This is where we can help. LiNK will start with the rescue of 100 refugees. To launch TheHundred program in 2010, our goal...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Refugees
December 25, 2009

Korean-American Activist Crosses Into North Korea (Updated)

Oh God, not again. Reuters is reporting that Robert Park, a 28 year-old American, has walked across the Tumen River from China to the North Korean town of Hoeryong, which is infamous for being both the birthplace of Kim Jong Il’s mother and the town nearest to Camp 22. Park’s apparent objectives were (1) to get himself arrested and (2) thereby raise global attention about North Korea’s brutal political prison camps. Rest assured that Park will accomplish Objective Number One....
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Robert Park/Useful Idiocy
December 25, 2009

Korean American Robert Park Reportedly Enters North Korea

Updated Below Late last night (the night of December 25th, Seoul-time) a couple Korean media outlets reported a Korean American, Robert Park, crossed from China into North Korea. Twelve hours later I couldn’t find anything more on the story, and I wondered if maybe Park had not carried it out. But within the last hour Reuters also has the story, though no comment from the North Korean government as of yet. SEOUL (Reuters) – A U.S. human rights activist trying...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Robert Park
December 10, 2009

Today’s the 61st Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

(Inspired by Indexed, with apologies for the hurried execution.) Sixty-one years ago today, on December 10th, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Just a few months before, on September 9th, the DPRK was officially founded.  (As Joshua might say, discuss amongst yourselves.) The North Korea Freedom Coalition, writing in a recent release, has a few ideas on changing the status quo: Because North Korea is among the most isolated countries in the world and its...
Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights
December 10, 2009

My, How Times Have Changed: Human Rights Edition

South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission made itself infamous during the Roh years for the tangled logic by which it condemned America for overthrowing the genocidal Saddam Hussein, yet concluded that North Korea’s concentration camps, infanticides, smothering repression, and starvation of its subject were none of its concern. To the few of us who were then paying attention to any of this, the HRC became an international laughingstock and a symbol of the Korean left’s hypocritical anti-Americanism, its easy collaboration...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Useful Idiocy
December 7, 2009

N. Korea Comes Up for Human Rights Review at the U.N.

North Korea’s “universal periodic review” before the U.N. Human Rights Council began today in Geneva. Nothing much will come of it, I suspect, but at least the human rights story will get a bit of media attention, and North Korea will be just a little more toxic to potential investors. “There is a difference between wanting to be isolated and not caring about the rest of the world. North Korea cares about the world and therefore it wants to be...
Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights
November 25, 2009

The LA Times on a Mission along SE Asia’s Underground Railroad

As an active member of Justice for North Korea, maybe I’m a bit biased, but I highly recommend this one. John Glionna of the Los Angeles Times has the story behind the 9 refugees who successfully received asylum in the Danish Embassy in Hanoi in late September and now are safely in South Korea.  There also is a bit of an update on the 5 refugees who were caught by the Chinese government at the border. Here’s the link:  Aiding...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia
November 18, 2009

Press Conference on NK Human Rights Several Hours Before Obama’s Arrival in Seoul

Updated below with videos, etc. The Association of North Korean Human Rights Organizations (ANKHRO / 북í•œ인ê¶Å’단체얰합회) held a press conference today at 2 p.m. near the US Embassy in Seoul.  Member groups Helping Hands Korea, Justice for North Korea, Unify Korea 2009 (which also held another event in the evening -Update: BBC–), and Christians for Social Responsibility all participated. Several North Korean defectors joined the other activists, though I wasn’t sure which individual organization(s) they came with or represented. The...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. & Korea
November 18, 2009

Human Rights Watch: Raise Human Rights in Bilateral Talks with North Korea

Kay Seok of Human Rights Watch is one of the few people doing laudable work in an industry so invested in defending terrorists of late that it’s often too distracted to address the worst atrocities since the fall of the Khmer Rouge. This time, however, HRW’s letter, addressed to Special Envoy Stephen Bosworth, is a useful contribution to the policy discussion about North Korea: For too long has the world sidelined human rights in North Korea while single-mindedly focusing on...
Categories Activism/Diplomacy/Human Rights
November 8, 2009

Photos from Saturday’s March and Demonstration for NK Human Rights

I would love to write more, but at least for now, here are some photos from Saturday’s March from near City Hall (actually, just to the right of the Deoksu Palace) to Seoul Station, where we joined a somewhat larger collection of groups assembled to call for freedom for North Koreans and meant to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall. The woman pictured speaking below is a North Korean survivor of sexual trafficking —...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Refugees
October 29, 2009

Survivor Confirms Location of Camp 12

As I have noted before, I recently began working closely with the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) on the identification of North Korea’s concentration and labor camps through satellite imagery. That work has now expanded beyond its beginnings on Google Earth to other sources of imagery, including Digital Globe. This has become a close collaboration and friendship with Chuck Downs, HRNK’s Executive Director, and researcher David Hawk, the author of The Hidden Gulag and a former Executive...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/The Camps
October 23, 2009

Organizational Profile: Justice for North Korea (JFNK)

Justice for North Korea (JFNK) is a small, activism-oriented group lead by South Korean pastor, Peter Chung. It has Christian and non-Christian members from both Koreas and a handful of other countries. At times they have been active in the Seoul portion of the multi-city demonstrations in front of Chinese embassies around the world that are coordinated by the NK Freedom Coalition. In May 2007, they started a 444-day campaign leading up to the Beijing Olympics in August 2008.  Every...
Categories Activism/Human Rights