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Category: Human Rights

November 24, 2008

Calling Jay Lefkowitz

According to some fragmentary reports passed along by Human Rights Frontiers, Son Jung Nam — or rather, what’s left of Son Jung Nam after more than a year of torture in a dungeon in Pyongyang — is about to be stood up against a firing squad … if he still lives, that is. (No link on the latest report, which come to me via e-mail). I previously posted on Son’s case here. In China, a group of 11 refugees between...
Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Refugees
November 22, 2008

The Power of Truth

Freedom rises over Korea, into the air over the most oppressed and darkened place on earth. The video clips that follow are from the BBC, Al Jazzeera, the Voice of America, and New Tang Dynasty Television. The people who are launching these balloons are, in large part, North Koreans who could not live — or stand living — in their homeland, and who can find no other means to connect with those they left behind. Others are South Koreans whose...
Categories Abductions/Activism/Defectors/Deprogramming/Human Rights/Human Trafficking
November 20, 2008

The Safety Dance

In my scrapbook from my Army days in Korea, I still have a leaflet, courtesy of “the protector of our race’s destiny,” declaring that “North and South shall bask together in the glow of General Kim Jong Il’s embrace.”  That leaflet was given to me by a sergeant in my unit, who found it outside Gate 7 of Yongsan Garrison in Seoul found one day after morning PT formation.  Where in the Armistice agreement does it say that only one...
Categories Activism/Censorship/Deprogramming
October 24, 2008

Domestic State Terrorism: North Korea Expands Use of Public Executions

[Updated below] A few weeks ago, the Chosun Ilbo, quoting NGO’s that in turn cite interviews with recent defectors, reported that North Korea carried out 901 public executions in 2007.  This figure, of course, does not include summary executions or those carried out in secrecy, or the ordinary toll of starvation, disease, and torture in the North Korea’s vast concentration camp system.When a society is as opaque as North Korea’s, I originally thought it strained to suggest, as some newspapers...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Inside NK/Regime Change
October 8, 2008

Lee’s N. Korea Policy Will Be, as Lee Says, ‘Pragmatic.’

Suzanne Scholte has accepted the Seoul Peace Prize, offering this prescient comment in her speech: “When all the atrocities committed by North Korean dictators are exposed in the future, people will assess how adequately the Seoul government then responded,” said Scholte, referring to the current administration. “Consider the judgment of history.”  [Chosun Ilbo] I’m hoping to have a guest post from a reader who was there.  Warning:  this post will now enter a stream of consciousness. You can already see...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics
October 1, 2008

CHRNK Updates “Failure to Protect”

Recall that I characterized the original report as “the ultimate must-read” on human rights in North Korea.  The report was “sponsored” by Vaclav Havel, Kjell Magne Bondevik, and Elie Wiesel, but actually written by the law firm DLA Piper, in close cooperation with scholars from the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.  The original 2006 report called for the U.N. to impose Chapter VII sanctions if the regime did not progress toward ending the mass murder and starvation of...
Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights
September 16, 2008

Joe Biden Is Blocking North Korea Human Rights Legislation, and You Can Help Un-Block It (Update: Biden’s Staff Denies, Predicts Bill Will Pass This Term)

[Update:   Not so, says Frank Jannuzi, who wrote in after I put up this post.  According to Jannuzi, Biden has never blocked this bill and has never opposed the two provisions mentioned in the post below.  As to the refugee provisions of H.R. 5834, Jannuzi says Biden supports them just as they are in the House version.  Jannuzi also says that not only does Biden support a full-time Special Envoy with ambassadorial rank, Biden offered the amendment to the...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. Politics
September 4, 2008

Congratulations to Suzanne Scholte

Suzanne Scholte, the President of the Defense Forum Foundation and head of the North Korean Freedom Coalition, has been awarded the Seoul Peace Prize, which comes with an award of $200,000: In a press conference held at the Seoul Press Center on Wednesday, Lee Chul-seung, chairman of the Seoul Peace Prize Cultural Foundation, said, “We selected Scholte as the winner this year for her contribution to improving human rights of North Korean residents and North Korean refugees, and bettering the...
Categories Activism/South Korea/U.S. & Korea
August 21, 2008

N. Korea: We Have No Human Rights Issues, You Slave-Trading Imperialists!

If you haven’t read the full KCNA editorial denouncing the United States for not de-listing the North as a state sponsor of terrorism, the quotes the media I showed you here really don’t do it justice: Explicitly speaking, there is no “human rights issue” much touted by the U.S. in the DPRK. The Korean people fully enjoy genuine freedom and rights under the socialist system where all people form a big family. It is the consistent popular policy of the...
Categories Anju Links/Human Rights/Six-Party Talks/WTF?
August 21, 2008

Dear Ban Ki Moon: A Letter from the Commitee for Human Rights in North Korea

CHRNK,  taking heart from Ban’s words in a July 4th speech in Seoul, hopes that they will mark the beginning of something more sustained, and perhaps even remotely effective. You are reported to have called upon the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to “take the necessary steps to improve their human rights situation”¦,” and said, “There are still many areas where human rights are not properly protected and even abused. This is an unacceptable situation.We agree, and trust your singling...
Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Six-Party Talks
August 18, 2008

Dems’ N. Korea Platform Collapses Under the Weight of History and Logic

You’d think that with a cast of 300 foreign policy advisors  on Obama’s team alone, the Democrats could find one who  has some  idea of who Roh  Moo Hyun was,  what he stood for, and what he would not stand against.  The Democrats have rolled out their 2008 platform.  Party platforms aren’t widely regarded for being repositories of substance.  They’re  better known  dispensing crumbs to interest groups.  When those interests conflict, they get resolved in the great unseen food chain...
Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics
August 7, 2008

North Korea Rejected Lefkowitz Visit to Kaesong; We Had to Hear It from the South Koreans

A few weeks ago, after Jay Lefkowitz, the Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, cancelled a visit to Kaesong, I speculated that the North Koreans felt free to just blow him off:  “One wonders whether the North Koreans, sensing how completely Lefkowitz has been marginalized in Washington, simply withdrew his permission to visit.”  And that turns about to be pretty much what happened: “We understand the North has refused to register the application by the special envoy,” South...
Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/NK Economics
June 30, 2008

Times of London: N. Korean Snipers Shooting Refugees

You read it here first, but now it’s getting some big media coverage: North Korean guards, newly armed with Russian Dragunov sniper rifles, have shot dead refugees attempting to ford the river that divides their hungry homeland from China, according to human rights campaigners. On the Chinese shore alone, two bodies, marked by several bullet holes, were found by a local activist, said Tim Peters, an American pastor who runs a Christian group supporting the fugitives. The shootings indicate a...
Categories China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
June 18, 2008

Kathleen Stephens Nomination Update

The Chosun Ilbo that the White House may not be interested in expending scarce capital on this one: There is only a slim chance of the U.S. Senate approving the nomination of Kathleen Stephens as ambassador to Seoul, Radio Free Asia reported Tuesday.  Her nomination bill was passed by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in April and sent to a plenary session for a vote. But according to the RFA, Republican Senator George Voinovich has delayed his approval,...
Categories Human Rights/U.S. Politics
June 7, 2008

North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act Passes in House

So I dropped by Open Congress and was pleased to see: Passed by voice vote in the House on May 15, 2008. On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended Agreed to by voice vote. (text: CR 5/13/2008 H3747-3748) Here’s more on the House bill.  Here’s the full  text (opens in pdf).  The list of co-sponsors is impressive for its bipartisanship:  Rep Ackerman, Gary L. [NY-5] – 4/17/2008  [Democrat] Rep Berman, Howard L. [CA-28] – 4/17/2008...
Categories Human Rights/U.S. Politics
May 31, 2008

MUST SEE: BBC / Chosun Ilbo Video on North Korean Refugees in China

In the brilliant sunlight of an icy February day, the camera takes us onto the frozen river.  A female figure lies, face down, hip raised in the classic pose of a reclining beauty, a North Korean woman – fully dressed – who fell while crossing. Like a sculpture cast in bronze, nameless, iconic, she is a monument to all the fallen who went unfilmed, their deaths unremarked. The Chinese guide who has brought the crew to see her has seen...
Categories China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees