Activities Today

Blogging will be light for the rest of the day while I’m at the Freedom House Conference. Meanwhile, LiNK has called a rally in front of the South Korean Embassy. Before you scroll down and read the full statement, check out this flyer, which is a much-improved version of my own prototype. Since I came up with that design, comparing South Korea’s policy to the old Fugitive Slave Act, Jasper Becker’s book has come out with a of a Chinese merchant scavenging through garbage dumps for North Korean refugees to sell to the police.

I didn’t know how apt the description was.

Washington, DC ““ On Tuesday, July 19th at 3:00 pm EST, human rights activists for North Korea will rally throughout the world against the official policy of negligence by the Republic of Korea in dealing with the North Korean human rights and refugee crisis. LiNK (Liberty in North Korea) will hold a protest in front of the ROK Embassy in Washington, DC because of South Korea’s inaction and complicity in the North Korean refugee crisis in China, the free nation’s continued silence on the vast human rights violations occurring miles north of Seoul, and the administration’s stance on opposing organized and mass defections of desperate North Korean refugees.

Activists nationwide will also coordinate a simultaneous email, fax and telephone protest campaign to Korean diplomatic officials in the US. For years, unprotected North Korean refugees in China have lived in terror because China flouts international law and refuses to recognize them as refugees. North Korean women and girls are sold into sexual slavery, and all North Korean refugees are in constant danger of being repatriated. Once they are sent back, they are brutally tortured, imprisoned, or executed- North Korea bars it’s citizens from leaving it’s borders, and marks those who leave treasonous. The crime is punishable, according to law, by death. Just a few months ago, the world saw the first images of public executions in North Korea.

South Korea is no less culpable, for the unconscionable crime of turning a blind eye. While President Roh has declared “diplomatic war” on Japan over the tiny island of Dokdo, he has not spared a moment for the emaciated children just miles north of Seoul. In fact, South Korea has become an expert in silence, abstaining, and saying “no” when it comes to the unimaginable suffering of millions of its own people, roughly a third of all Koreans on the planet.

One of the rare times that the South Korean government has broken its silence on North Korean refugee and rights issues was when the Minister of Unification announced that SK would not accept organized and mass defections. This act violates a slew of international treaties and obligations, UN Conventions, and South Korea’s own Constitution. Keeping with this behavior, South Korea banned recently released footage of public executions in North Korea from the airwaves.

While Korean politicians vehemently denounce Japan for its past wrongs, including the tragedy of comfort women, the government allows the enslavement of thousands of North Korean women who become victims of human trafficking in China. Seoul has repeatedly abstained from UN resolutions condemning the deplorable human rights record of North Korea, censures defectors from speaking freely about the reality in the North, and refuses to permit North Korean defectors from leaving South Korea on visits to other nations, where they are invited to tell the world about one of the world’s greatest tragedies.

LiNK will not stand by and watch South Korea continue to do nothing but let the death toll rise. Very few leaders and international organs call the nation to account for their negligence in the face of immeasurable suffering, but one day South Korea will have to answer to the 23 million North Koreans denied of their basic liberties and human rights. LiNK is a one-and-a-half year-old international grassroots non-profit organization with over 70 chapters in the US, Canada, South Korea, China, Japan, England, France and Australia. It seeks to bring about awareness about the North Korean human rights and humanitarian crisis, and counter the global indifference and inaction on the issue.

LiNK is set to open a full-time office in the DC-Metro area this August 15.