More on North Korean Freedom Day

Rebecca at NKZone was challenged on her estimate that 1,000 people were there. While I’d put the number closer to 500-700, there were clearly hundreds of people at the Capitol at the end of the march. Even a thousand people is not a large demonstration by Washington standards, but it’s significant in light of where the nascent movement for human rights in North Korea was a year ago–there wasn’t one.

The single most impressive factor was the youthfulness of the crowd (thanks to LiNK). Both old and young were there, but there were at least two under-30s for every over-50. The second was who they were–people with full-time jobs, students at the country’s best universities, people with businesses to run, in short, people who had other things to do, who don’t specialize in street theater, but showed up out of deep dedication. Every racial and ethnic group I can imagine was represented, as well as every side of the political spectrum. The speakers were Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. Another important fact is that people from all over the United States and worldwide met, exchanged ideas, and established connections that will make all of our efforts more effective and improve our coordination.

What we accomplished this year bodes well for next year, and every other year until we crush this nefarious regime and dump its pieces on the ash-heap of history.