30 November 2009

AN INTERNATIONAL GROUP OF LAWMAKERS has called for better treatment for North Korean refugees:

The lawmakers issued a joint statement calling on Pyongyang to end its gross human rights violations, including political detentions, torture, and public executions. The statement was signed by lawmakers from eight Asian nations: Afghanistan, Cambodia, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Also signing the statement were African lawmakers from Djibouti, Ivory Coast, and Senegal and one lawmaker from Croatia. They statement demanded China stop arresting and repatriating North Koreans and instead offer them protections as refugees.

Bangkok was an interesting choice of venue. It’s also the destination of choice for many North Koreans on the underground railroad, though Thailand seems ambivalent at best about welcoming North Korean refugees.

CHRIS HILL UPDATE: As Iraq confronts Syria over the latter allowing terrorists to pass through its territory on the way to Iraq, Iraq is also complaining that American diplomats aren’t pressuring Syria to end that sponsorship. But I thought our embassy in Baghdad was in the hands of one of our smartest, most proven diplomats (well, the word “proven” wouldn’t be inaccurate here, I suppose).

THE MYTH OF LIBERAL EUROPE: You know, I can think of plenty of appropriate reactions to the excesses of extreme Islam in Europe, but a new Swiss “constitutional ban” on minarets hearkens back to Europe pushing Jews into ghettos and the Pale of Settlement. Surely a place as benighted as Europe imagines itself to be can find some less intolerant way to oppose intolerance.

It would be interesting to see the breakdown in votes between the French-, Italian-, and German-speaking cantons.