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Category: Refugees

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 30, 2010

WTF? American Who Crossed Into North Korea May Have Defected

That latest American who crossed into North Korea looks more likely to be a Spartacist than Spartacus: South Korea’s Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said the man crossed into North Korea from China on Monday. It said an unidentified source in North Korea told the newspaper the 28-year-old man said he came to the country because he did not “want to become a cannon fodder in the capitalist military,” and “wants to serve in the North Korean military” instead. [Washington Post, via...
Categories Defectors/WTF?
January 27, 2010

North Korean Defects from Embassy in Ethiopia

Yonhap and AFP are both reporting that a 40 year-old North Korean “medic” at the embassy in Addis Ababa defected to South Korea last October. The man is now safely in Seoul. Yonhap said the communist state’s embassy protested strongly, making a threatening call to the South Korean mission. President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008. Discuss among yourselves. North Korean officials used cars to stage protests outside the building...
Categories Africa/Defectors/Sanctions
January 26, 2010

Kim Jong-il Ordered Shooting of Defectors

In May of 2008, this site was the first to publish reports, attributed to the NGO Helping Hands Korea, that North Korea had issued orders to its border guards to shoot fleeing refugees, notwithstanding its failure to provide them with the basic necessities of life and its draconian treatment of those who try to provide for themselves. The Times of London later picked up those reports. Other reports suggest that the shoot-to-kill policy was hardly new. According to one previous...
Categories Human Rights/Refugees
January 22, 2010

North Korea Liquidates Family for Trying to Escape

Via the Daily NK comes a terrible report about the fate of the Jeong family from the town of Hyesan, near the Chinese border. At some point, the Jeongs decided that they’d had enough stultifying propaganda and grass porridge for a lifetime, so they decided to make a break for it. Early in July last year Jeong escaped from North Korea to Changbai in China along with his mother, wife and three- and seven-year old daughters. However, in August the...
Categories Human Rights/Inside NK/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
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 22, 2009

You mean to tell me that seven people got into this open boat, drifted South “accidentally, braved nine-foot waves, and now want to go back to North Korea?

Seven North Koreans expressed their desire to return home after they were found drifting south of the Yellow Sea border, a government source here said Tuesday. The North Koreans were detected by South Korean Coast Guard officers Monday afternoon and have since been under investigation by intelligence and police authorities. “Roughly speaking, they appear to want it (repatriation),” the official, who is well-versed in North Korea-related intelligence, said on condition of anonymity because questioning is still under way. But the...
Categories North-South/Refugees
December 21, 2009

South Korea Clears Mines from the DMZ (and Why I Think That’s a Shrewd Decision)

You say you want reunification? Fine, then. Dig up the mines along the DMZ and open the border. No, I’m not kidding: The South Korean military said Monday it has removed some 1,300 land mines this year from the country’s rural areas bordering North Korea, a reminder of the tense 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce. In the operations that lasted from April to November, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) mobilized 3,300 personnel to remove mines from...
Categories NK Military/North-South/Refugees/ROK Military/Subversion
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 15, 2009

The Wall Street Journal on Obama, China, and Chongo-Ri (Bumped)

So, if you’re coming here from the Wall Street Journal editorial to see the satellite images of Chongo-ri, you’ll find them here. You might also want to read more about North Korea’s labor camp system and what happens to people who enter those camps. We’re about to find out whether President Obama is prepared to pay the debt that his Nobel Peace Prize represents. Thanks to DanB, a/k/a Dan Bielefeld for getting the word out. If you want to help...
Categories Human Rights/Refugees/The Camps
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 28, 2009

“Under the Warm Care of a Relevant Organ?”

A South Korean man who worked at Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor unit and more recently at a pig farm has defected to the North by walking across the heavily mined border, the communist state’s media said on Tuesday. [Reuters] Something tells me he’ll be dreaming of those little piggies soon enough. “He is beside himself with joy for having accomplished this heroic deed,” the North’s KCNA news agency said. It identified the defector as Kang Dong-rim, 30. “He is now under...
Categories Defectors/Useful Idiocy
October 26, 2009

If President Lee is Sincere About Protecting Refugees and POW’s, the South Korean Consul in Shenyang Must Go

[10/27: Here’s an update on that 80 year-old POW.] The latest reports coming from northeastern China emphasize China’s ongoing disregard for the lives of North Korean refugees, and for the pleas of the South Korean government. They also raise questions about President Lee’s sincerity about shifting to a more compassionate policy toward North Korean refugees. Last week, it was reported that two family members of an escaped South Korean prisoner of war found their way to the South Korean consulate...
Categories China & Korea/Diplomacy/Refugees
October 20, 2009

Nine Refugees Leave Danish Embassy in Hanoi for Seoul

“The nine North Koreans left the Danish embassy this morning and they are now at Noi Bai International Airport checking in before flying to Singapore and then Seoul,” the Vietnamese diplomatic source told AFP, asking not to be named. [….] The nine entered the Danish compound on September 24 hoping to reach South Korea, Kim Sang-Hun, an activist who said his group helped them reach the embassy, told AFP earlier. [AFP] That must be the same Kim Sang Hun whom...
Categories Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia
October 14, 2009

Interview with Kim Young-il, Executive Director of PSCORE

People for Successful COrean REunification (PSCORE; 성공적인 통일ìâ€ž ë§Å’들어ê°â‚¬Ã«Å ” 사람들, aka 성통ë§Å’사) is a small NGO that works on “democratization, human rights and social issues. [They] hope to bridge the gap between South Korea, North Korea and the international community.” They mostly aim their programs, such as essay contests, a one-on-one tutoring program, a summer English camp, and cultural outings, at students, but they’ve held at least one seminar for the public at large (last Spring).  Mark your calendars for...
Categories Defectors/Democracy/Human Rights/Reconstruction