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Category: Human Rights

January 21, 2010

Benefit Concert for Stateless Orphans in China

Last Saturday night, January 16th, friend Lauren Walker put together an intimate evening of music at Yogiga Gallery in the Hongdae area of Seoul. Though by “intimate” I do not mean quiet. “A Night for North Koreans: Stateless Orphan Benefit Concert” raised over 700,000 won (~US$617) for an orphanage in China. Possibly 10,000 or more children of North Korean mothers and Chinese fathers are stateless, because they cannot be registered with the Chinese authorities, lest the mothers be caught and...

Categories Activism/China/Human Rights/Refugees
January 10, 2010

Whoa. I Think We Just Found Robert King.

A U.S. envoy says that the human rights situation in North Korea must improve before the country can normalize relations with the United States. President Barack Obama’s special envoy on North Korean human rights Robert King is visiting South Korea this week to discuss the issue with government officials. King said of North Korea, ”It’s one of the worst places in terms of lack of human rights. The situation is appalling.” He also said that the situation is preventing the...

Categories Activism/Human Rights
January 8, 2010

For the Love of Christ, People, Please Stop Walking Into North Korea!

Yes, it has happened again. Link in Korean only so far. The man is said to be a South Korean national in his 30’s or 40’s. Ten North Korean guards were there to welcome him, and one gobsmacked Chinese taxi driver was there to see him off. I should note that it’s not confirmed yet why this guy crossed or what his plan was, so I’m speculating. Well, I’ll admit it: if enough people do this, it certainly will get...

Categories Activism/Human Rights
December 30, 2009

LiNK Needs Your Help to Rescue One Hundred North Korean Refugees

I’m always glad to post updates on LiNK fund-raisers; they’re one of the most dedicated, effective, smart-thinking activist groups working on North Korea issues. This season, they’re launching the One Hundred campaign: Up to 300,000 North Koreans are hiding in the underground today. Most are looking for an opportunity to escape but cannot fund their own journey. This is where we can help. LiNK will start with the rescue of 100 refugees. To launch TheHundred program in 2010, our goal...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Refugees
December 25, 2009

Korean-American Activist Crosses Into North Korea (Updated)

Oh God, not again. Reuters is reporting that Robert Park, a 28 year-old American, has walked across the Tumen River from China to the North Korean town of Hoeryong, which is infamous for being both the birthplace of Kim Jong Il’s mother and the town nearest to Camp 22. Park’s apparent objectives were (1) to get himself arrested and (2) thereby raise global attention about North Korea’s brutal political prison camps. Rest assured that Park will accomplish Objective Number One....

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Robert Park/Useful Idiocy
December 25, 2009

Korean American Robert Park Reportedly Enters North Korea

Updated Below Late last night (the night of December 25th, Seoul-time) a couple Korean media outlets reported a Korean American, Robert Park, crossed from China into North Korea. Twelve hours later I couldn’t find anything more on the story, and I wondered if maybe Park had not carried it out. But within the last hour Reuters also has the story, though no comment from the North Korean government as of yet. SEOUL (Reuters) – A U.S. human rights activist trying...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Robert Park
December 18, 2009

New Imagery of North Korea’s Yodok Concentration Camp Shows Northern, Western Boundaries

Since I had first begun to map North Korea’s concentration camp system on Google Earth, it had been a source of frustration to me that the imagery of Camp 15, the infamous Yodok Camp documented in Kang Chol Hwan’s memoir, was of such poor quality and resolution. The other day, my friend Curtis notified me that Google Earth had released much new imagery of North Korea, and with that new imagery, we now have a much better outline of Camp...

Categories Google Earth/Human Rights/The Camps
December 15, 2009

Chosun Ilbo: North Korea Executes 12 After Currency Riot in Hamhung

Now that many North Koreans have burned the savings that the regime suddenly declared worthless this month, the Chosun Ilbo reports that public outrage has forced Kim Jong Il to raise the exchange limit to 500,000 won. The decision coincides with the first report of a significant outbreak of anti-regime violence, followed by a brutal reaction: The announcements came after rioting by market traders in the Hamhung region was reported on Dec. 5-6 amid sympathy from ordinary people, sources said....

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/NK Economics/Resistance
December 10, 2009

Today’s the 61st Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

(Inspired by Indexed, with apologies for the hurried execution.) Sixty-one years ago today, on December 10th, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Just a few months before, on September 9th, the DPRK was officially founded.  (As Joshua might say, discuss amongst yourselves.) The North Korea Freedom Coalition, writing in a recent release, has a few ideas on changing the status quo: Because North Korea is among the most isolated countries in the world and its...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights
December 10, 2009

My, How Times Have Changed: Human Rights Edition

South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission made itself infamous during the Roh years for the tangled logic by which it condemned America for overthrowing the genocidal Saddam Hussein, yet concluded that North Korea’s concentration camps, infanticides, smothering repression, and starvation of its subject were none of its concern. To the few of us who were then paying attention to any of this, the HRC became an international laughingstock and a symbol of the Korean left’s hypocritical anti-Americanism, its easy collaboration...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Useful Idiocy
December 8, 2009

In Geneva, North Korea Answers Atrocity Accusations with Bluster, Denials, and a Concession

For the most part, it’s what you’d have expected: Lies, all lies! A U.S. plot (with the EU) to overthrow us! The POW issue is resolved. There are no more Japanese abductees in North Korea, and there is no need for a U.N. Special Envoy to visit. Some of the denials almost must be seen to be believed. On the starvation of the North Korean people, particularly those in the lower political castes: According to The Independent, North Korean ambassador...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/The Camps
December 7, 2009

N. Korea Comes Up for Human Rights Review at the U.N.

North Korea’s “universal periodic review” before the U.N. Human Rights Council began today in Geneva. Nothing much will come of it, I suspect, but at least the human rights story will get a bit of media attention, and North Korea will be just a little more toxic to potential investors. “There is a difference between wanting to be isolated and not caring about the rest of the world. North Korea cares about the world and therefore it wants to be...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights
November 25, 2009

The LA Times on a Mission along SE Asia’s Underground Railroad

As an active member of Justice for North Korea, maybe I’m a bit biased, but I highly recommend this one. John Glionna of the Los Angeles Times has the story behind the 9 refugees who successfully received asylum in the Danish Embassy in Hanoi in late September and now are safely in South Korea.  There also is a bit of an update on the 5 refugees who were caught by the Chinese government at the border. Here’s the link:  Aiding...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia
November 23, 2009

U.N. General Assembly Condemns North Korea for “Systemic, Widespread, and Grave” of Human Rights Violations

South Korea voted for and was one of 53 co-sponsors. The vote was 96 for, 19 against, with 65 abstentions: The resolution goes on to list torture, the absence of due process in law, use of the death penalty, collective punishment, strict restrictions on freedom of movement, thought, conscience, religion, opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and association, the right to privacy and equal access to information, the treatment of returned refugees, violations of economic, social and cultural rights, human rights...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights
November 23, 2009

Senate Confirms Robert King as N. Korea Human Rights Envoy

The Senate confirmed King on a voice vote: Speaking at a Senate confirmation hearing earlier this month, he defined North Korea as “one of the worst abusers of human rights in the world.” He pledged to protect the human rights of the North Koreans, pay attention to South Korean prisoners of war in the North and Japanese abducted to the North, and address China’s deportation of North Korean defectors. [Chosun Ilbo] More here. It’s good that King will be a...

Categories Human Rights
November 18, 2009

Press Conference on NK Human Rights Several Hours Before Obama’s Arrival in Seoul

Updated below with videos, etc. The Association of North Korean Human Rights Organizations (ANKHRO / 북한인권단체얰합회) held a press conference today at 2 p.m. near the US Embassy in Seoul. Member groups Helping Hands Korea, Justice for North Korea, Unify Korea 2009 (which also held another event in the evening -Update: BBC–), and Christians for Social Responsibility all participated. Several North Korean defectors joined the other activists, though I wasn’t sure which individual organization(s) they came with or represented. The...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. & Korea
November 18, 2009

Human Rights Watch: Raise Human Rights in Bilateral Talks with North Korea

Kay Seok of Human Rights Watch is one of the few people doing laudable work in an industry so invested in defending terrorists of late that it’s often too distracted to address the worst atrocities since the fall of the Khmer Rouge. This time, however, HRW’s letter, addressed to Special Envoy Stephen Bosworth, is a useful contribution to the policy discussion about North Korea: For too long has the world sidelined human rights in North Korea while single-mindedly focusing on...

Categories Activism/Diplomacy/Human Rights