Home  >  

Daily Archive: March 25, 2008

March 25, 2008

S. Korean Human Rights Commission Will Investigate Atrocities in N. Korea

South Korea’s human rights agency said yesterday it would launch a probe into abuses in North Korea by interviewing defectors from the communist state.  The National Human Rights Commission has included investigating its neighbor ¡ ¯s record as one of its major tasks this year. “We will conduct a survey on the overall human rights conditions in North Korea this year by hearing from defectors, said commission spokesman Lee Myung-jae.  The number of defectors to be interviewed could be in...

Categories Appeasement/Defectors/Human Rights/Refugees/The Camps
March 25, 2008

Anju Links for 25 March 2008

HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU HAVE TO KILL to get noticed by Amnesty International?  My theory is that it depends on how much you tell people you hate America, but it looks like North Korea may have exceeded Amnesty’s limit.  Let’s hope this turns out to be something sustained. NAMIBIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST DENOUNCES North Korea’s human rights record  on the occasion of Kim Yong Nam’s visit: Just about a week or two ago about 15 people were executed publicly...

Categories Anju Links
March 25, 2008

S. Korea (Sort of) Links Humanitarian Aid to Return of Abductees

South Korea’s president has asked North Korea to consider sending home prisoners of war and captured civilians in return for receiving humanitarian aid from Seoul. President Lee Myung-bak said in an interview published Monday that he wouldn’t seek to link food and fertilizer aid to international efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. “Still, since we are sending humanitarian aid, the North should consider humanitarian measures, without any condition, on the pending issue of South Korean PoWs and 400...

Categories Abductions/Famine & Food Aid/Korean War
March 25, 2008

Defector Newspaper Reports Food Protests in North Korea

Amid reports  that North Hamgyeong Province (among others) totters on the brink of famine,  the  North Korean regime is desperately trying to shut down markets and regain state control of the food supply.  The regime has long used food to sustain those it trusts and control those it doesn’t.  I’ve written about  North Korea’s accelerating food  crisis  in some detail recently.   Map of protest locations (click to enlarge) This year, food shortages are reported even in elite Pyongyang, a...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Regime Change/Resistance