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Category: Activism

October 20, 2014

Yeonmi Park appeals to the conscience of Europe

It is her first time in Ireland and, indeed, Europe. But at the age of just 21, this sweetly-confident, intelligent and tiny-framed young woman, who managed to flee the famine-torn country at the age of 13, is already a global spokesperson for her own people – a people terrorised into submission and silence while the wider world ignores what she describes as a “holocaust”. [Irish Independent] Miss Park’s life went from latent terror to a living hell when her parents...

Categories Activism/Europe/Refugees
October 11, 2014

Silencing Park Sang-Hak won’t end North Korea’s threats (updated)

For the first time since 2010, North Korea has fired across the border into South Korean territory, this time with 14.5-millimeter anti-aircraft guns. The North Koreans were shooting at the second of two launches of balloons carrying a total of 1.5 million leaflets, by North Korean refugee Park Sang-Hak and the Fighters for a Free North Korea. The North Koreans didn’t respond to the first launch of 10 balloons at noon, but at around 4:00 in the afternoon, they fired...

Categories Activism/Censorship/Korean War II/North-South/Terrorism (NK)
September 29, 2014

Would it be slander if I called Rep. Sim Jae-kwon a fascist masquerading as a liberal?

A South Korean opposition lawmaker filed a resolution Thursday calling for the implementation of past inter-Korean agreements to stop slander between the two sides. The resolution, submitted by Rep. Sim Jae-kwon of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD), calls on the two Koreas to recognize that mutual recognition and respect are the basis for trust-building. It also urges the two sides to honor such agreements as the joint statement of July 1972, which bans cross-border slander. [Yonhap]...

Categories Activism/Censorship/Refugees
September 23, 2014

North Korean Gulag survivors call on Switzerland to freeze Kim Jong Un’s slush funds (Alternate title: Cursed are the Cheesemakers).

Switzerland has always been there for North Korea. When North Koreans were starving to death in heaps, Switzerland was there to receive Kim Jong Il’s personal shopper and sell him millions of dollars’ worth of its finest timepieces. When North Korea needed creative new ways to make money – literally! – Switzerland sold it the very same intaglio presses and optically variable ink our Bureau of Engraving and Printing uses to make money. When Kim Jong Un needed a place...

Categories Activism/Anju Links/Europe/Money Laundering/Refugees/Sanctions
September 23, 2014

Park Sang Hak is a very brave man.

Park and the Fighters for a Free North Korea, most of whom are North Korean refugees, ignored a letter from Pyongyang to the office of South Korea’s President that, according to Yonhap, “alluded to retaliation” against their next leaflet balloon launch: Defying the warning, 10 activists from Fighters for Free North Korea launched 10 big balloons carrying 200,000 anti-North Korea leaflets into the sky in Paju, north of Seoul. The waterproof leaflets contain messages denouncing the three-generation power transfer in...

Categories Activism/Propaganda/Refugees/Subversion/Terrorism (NK)
September 19, 2014

LiNK Fundraiser in Long Beach on Oct. 25: 5K for Freedom

From LiNK’s site: 5K for FREEDOM is an all ages event raising funds for Liberty in North Korea. You are welcome to walk, run, bike, rollerblade, jog, push a stroller, or whatever you’d like! This is a non-competitive 5K designed to encourage fun while raising money for a good cause. Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) is a non-profit working with North Korean refugees in hiding in China. These are families, grandmothers, children, daughters, etc. They risked their lives escaping North...

Categories Activism/Anju Links
August 29, 2014

Australian MP calls for divestment from mining venture in N. Korea

”To maintain its iron-fisted hold over the North Korean population, the Pyongyang regime needs hard currency, and it is clear that these projects could provide billions of dollars to the North Korean leadership.” [Michael Danby, MP] It won’t surprise you that I oppose any investment in an unreformed North Korea that continues to slaughter its own people and menace its neighbors. I believe that those who justify investment as a driver of reform have it completely backwards, that investing in the...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Sanctions
August 13, 2014

First as tragedy, then as farce

The story I linked Monday about Michael Kirby’s comments spurring the U.N. to action in North Korea eventually grew into two posts, because in the same story, Kirby also warned against trivializing what’s happening in North Korea. The Commission of Inquiry, which reported to the UN in March, detailed horrific abuses of human rights in North Korea, including starving political prisoners reduced to eating grass and rodents in secret gulags, schoolchildren made to watch firing squad executions, and women forced...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Books & Films/Censorship
August 9, 2014

Must hear: Kurt Achin’s podcast from Hack North Korea

I think Thor Halvorssen is my new idol. Most people believe that the North Korean government — and emphasis on government — is an issue that should be addressed by governments, or by a collection of governments. Well, we believe in helping people. We believe in peer-to-peer networks. We are not interested in, you know, running to the U.N., which has been oh-so-extraordinary at stopping genocides from occurring — that’s dripping in sarcasm. We don’t believe the United Nations is...

Categories Activism/Human Rights
July 31, 2014

Refugees, geeks to join forces at “Hack North Korea”

The Human Rights Foundation, “a New York-based group that focuses on closed societies,” will host a two-day “hackathon” this coming weekend to “harness the technical prowess of Silicon Valley to come up with new ways to get information safely into North Korea.” The event’s title is “Hack North Korea.” Several prominent North Korean defectors will attend the event including pro-democracy activist Park Sang-hak, former North Korean child prisoner Kang Chol-hwan, media personality Park Yeon-mi and Kim Heung-Kwang, a former professor...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Subversion
July 28, 2014

Is the U.S. ready to take N. Korea’s crimes against humanity to the Security Council?

On balance, probably not, but hey, it’s an election year, which may or may not explain why it’s making noise like it might: The United States, France and Australia called for the United Nations Security Council to deal with North Korea’s human rights violations, a news report said Saturday. It isn’t clear why this push is happening nearly six months after the release of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) report; after all, the testimony before the COI was widely covered in...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights
June 20, 2014

Benefit concert this Sunday at the Kennedy Center

On Sunday, June 29th, 7:30 p.m., at the Kennedy Center, the lovely ladies of the Ahn Trio will perform in a benefit concert for Shin Dong-Hyok’s NGO, Inside NK: Inside NK presents the Ahn Trio in a concert performance featuring works by Bunch, Piazzolla, and Balakrishnan. Hailed as “exacting and exciting musicians” by the Los Angeles Times, the three sisters of the Ahn Trio have earned a distinguished reputation for embracing 21st century classical music with their unique style and...

Categories Activism
March 28, 2014

North Korea speaker series in Seoul, April and May

At the request of the North Korea Strategy Center (NKSC), a Seoul-based NGO run by “Aquariums of Pyongyang” author Kang Cheol Hwan (nksc.co.kr), I’m passing along this information about a speaker series on North Korea NKSC is holding in Seoul for the international community there. Entitled “Strategies for Change: A Speaker Series on North Korea,” the three month long series features nine speakers talking on a range of topics, from “North Korea basics” (the country’s economy and nuclear issue) and...

Categories Activism/Human Rights
March 23, 2014

Event tomorrow on the COI report

I apologize for the short notice, but tomorrow at 2:45 p.m., the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the Foreign Policy Initiative will co-sponsor an event: “North Korea’s Human Rights Violations – What Next After the U.N. Commission of Inquiry Report?,” at Room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Melanie Kirkpatrick and Christopher Griffin will moderate, and panelists will include Hyeonsoo Lee, Roberta Cohen, and Greg Scarlatoiu.

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights
March 6, 2014

Open Sources, March 6, 2014

~  1  ~ THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO CAME to this event on Capitol Hill yesterday and helped make it a huge success. We filled the room well beyond its capacity. There was an energy in the room that went beyond the question of numbers. It was who was there — young, old, in-between, conservatives, liberals, and a variety of ethnicities, including a very sizable Korean-American contingent. I don’t have words to express my admiration for the leadership of Suzanne...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Politics
March 3, 2014

Events in Seoul about human rights in North Korea, March 6th and 15th

If you’re in Seoul, there are two upcoming events about human rights in the North. The organizers asked me to get the word out, and I’m glad to oblige. First, Justice for North Korea will hold a special screening of “Apostle,” a film about human rights in North Korea on Thursday, March 6th, at 7:30, to mark the UN COI’s recent report. After the screening, Peter Jung, director of Justice For North Korea, will present his book “Persecution,” which discussed...

Categories Activism/Human Rights