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Category: Human Rights

December 4, 2006

EU Investigating Forced N. Korean Labor

Update:   More at the Daily NK.   You may recall my previous post (and R. Elgin’s) about the use of female North Korean slave laborers to stitch upholstery for German luxury sedans, which certainly brings back a few memories about the golden age of German business ethics.  It looks like that source of income will soon come to an end, as the European Parliament is now investigating the conditions under which North Koreans labor in the Czech Republic and...
Categories Europe/Human Rights/Human Trafficking
December 2, 2006

Must-Read: On the Underground Railroad

The Times of London spent months trying to interview one of the conductors of the underground railroad.  This remarkable report tells us what North Koreans suffer to escape from hell on earth: He muffles his face and hides in the back of a car. Every Chinese checkpoint is a challenge. North Korean agents are out to kill him. Chinese-Korean gangsters hate him for rescuing women doomed to sexual slavery. Nam made his own escape after his wife and younger son...
Categories China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
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 21, 2006

Minutes of the U.N. Debate on Human Rights in North Korea, With Comments

Background:  The North Korean government government has plunged the world into crisis with a weapons buildup paid for at the cost of two million North Koreans who were starved to death.  The world’s most repressive and belligerent regime has finally and narrowly drawn the diffident and non-binding  disapproval of the U.N. General Assembly.  And even this was highly controversial to some.  The quality of the debate is so depressing as to  overpower the quality of the  result, such as it...
Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights
November 20, 2006

‘Unlike in the past, it is absurd to call a person unqualified because he was a pro-North leftist.”‘

This is the statement attributed to ruling  Uri Party lawmaker Im Jong-Seok during the confirmation hearing for Lee Jae-Joung, South Korea’s next Minister of Appeasement Unification.  Fine, then.  Is it equally absurd for a civilized democracy to question the fitness of a pro-fascist rightist  for a senior cabinet position?  Does Korea’s left hereby waive all grievances against Park Chung-Hee for his collaboration with Imperial Japan, along with any hereditary claims against his daughter, just in time for next year’s election? ...
Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Korean Society
November 17, 2006

General Assembly Passes N. Korea Resolution, Continues to Be Mostly Worthless

[Update:   Here is the text of the resolution.] South Korea for the first time on Friday joined other U.N. members in rebuking North Korea for gross human rights abuses, including torture, political executions and miserable prison camp conditions. A draft resolution on the abuses was passed by a vote of 91 to 21 with 60 abstentions in a General Assembly committee that includes all U.N. members, thereby assuring its official adoption by the full assembly. North Korea rejected the...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Human Rights
November 16, 2006

No Abstention This Year!

Seoul, in a surprise reversal, will reluctantly support this year’s U.N. resolution on human rights in North Korea: South Korea decided Thursday to vote in favor of a United Nations resolution condemning North Korea’s human rights abuses, citing a change in the geopolitical situation after Pyongyang’s nuclear weapon test in October.  The U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote on the nonbinding resolution drafted by the European Union, the United States, and Japan early Friday (Seoul time). Thursday’s decision, which...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Human Rights
November 15, 2006

Scarlet Fever Outbreak Spreads in N. Korea

South Korea’s official Yonhap news agency is now picking up the story that the Daily NK first reported, and the news isn’t good. Scarlet fever has been spreading fast in North Korea for nearly a month and is showing signs of becoming a full-blown pandemic despite efforts by North Korean authorities to contain the disease, a source close to the North said Wednesday. The disease first broke out in the communist state’s northern Yanggang Province last month, but is quickly...
Categories Human Rights/Inside NK
November 14, 2006

The Reinvention of Ban Ki-Moon

He seems to have concluded that he needs to put some distance between himself and his comrades in the ruling party.  The first of two stories is this remarkable statement, timed just before Seoul is expected to abstain from yet another UN resolution on human rights in the North. UN secretary-general-designate Ban Ki-moon on Sunday called for a “more proactive position” from Seoul on North Korea’s human rights issues. Ban said the international community “has great expectations in that regard,...
Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/Korean War
November 13, 2006

Shame on South Korea

They’re going to abstain again.  This year, there will be  another U.N. resolution condemning North Korea’s mass murder of its own people — 2.4 million and counting, and South Korea will remain silent.  LiNK was there to make sure the world remembers this cowardly, selfish, and  reprehensible act.  One day, the North Korean people will demand an explanation.  These abstentions will add  the bitterness of betrayal to the great difficulties that are sure to come with reunification.  (Picture credits:  1,...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Human Rights
November 10, 2006

The Next Food Crisis, Part 1: DLA Piper Report: N. Korean Famine A ‘Crime Against Humanity’

I’ve finally finished reading the DLA Piper report, which calls on the U.N. Security Council to invoke Chapter VI, and then Chapter VII, against North Korea for the crime of failing to protect its population.  As regular readers know, I’ve long placed the North Korean famine at the top of the list of its crimes against humanity, and now, for the first time, a published scholarly report is making that same accusation and tying it to specific provisions of international...
Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights
November 10, 2006

The Next Food Crisis, Part 2: Will Josette Sheeran Stop the Next Great Famine?

As the reports on North Korea’s food situation continue to grow more dire, I’m no longer alone in warning that the country is again on the brink of famine (see, e.g., this, this, or this, at pages 26-28).  That’s why food policy — not nukes,  missiles, or even other human rights issues —  could soon become the most urgent issue in  how the world approaches North  Korea.  It would also be a real opportunity for the U.N. to redeem itself...
Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights
November 9, 2006

The Czech Republic’s ‘Peculiar Institution’

“If someone calls it slavery …, I’m not the person responsible for that.” The IHT looks at the conditions in which North Korean women labor in the Czech Republic.  Some will  say  — and I will agree —  that the women certainly look better fed and clothed than their counterparts at home.  One could say the same for workers at Kaesong, to  a lesser extent,  who probably also eat better than their peers.  Like those meeting the classical definition of...
Categories Appeasement/Europe/Human Rights
November 9, 2006

Chosun Ilbo’s Take on Dem Takeover Sketches Shape of New Realignment

Today is November 9th, which means that the official sulking period has ended, and it’s time to start picking your way though the banquet of bloggable delicacies of our new moveable feast.  America has moved to the left, but it’s uncertain just how far.  At the same time, Korea seems poised to move  right just, and it’s not at all clear that either side will stop to shake hands if, and when, they cross paths.  A more elemental question is...
Categories America/An Alliance?/Human Rights/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Washington Views
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