Human Rights – Page 21

December 30, 2007

Jay who? Christopher Hitchens, President Bush, and the betrayal of the North Korean people

Christopher Hitchens is certainly one of our age’s most compelling thinkers and one of the English language’s best writers. I disagree with him about plenty of things; who could say otherwise? Hitchens’s greatest logical strength is his consistent argument for the moral superiority of freedom — for all of its flaws of application — over slavery. That is a woefully unfashionable idea among popinjays in Europe and America who are too sodden with the smug confidence of liberties taken for...

Appeasement/Human Rights/U.S. Politics

December 23, 2007

N. Korean Dissident Yoo Sang-Joon freed

To those who responded to my request to spam e-mail the Chinese government to demand Yoo Sang Joon’s release, reach up and pat yourself on the back. You just might have saved a life. Yoo’s wife and one child died in the Great Famine, and his remaining son, Chul Min, died of exposure trying to escape through the Mongolian desert. Not long ago, Yoo appeared to be headed for a post-mortem reunion with his family. He was under arrest by...

Activism/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees

December 14, 2007

Protest updates

A number of videos from the November 30th-December 1st protests at Chinese embassies and consulates are now available on YouTube here. Although the protests were not numerically large — for that, you need a cause that’s widely supported by people without regular jobs — they took place in a much larger number of cities than previously, and they showed much more ambition in their use of street theater. In front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, the North Korean Freedom...

Activism

December 7, 2007

Daewoo proudly announces Burma deal, complete absence of business ethics

I suppose, by now, we shouldn’t be surprised that South Korean companies find no regime too murderous or repugnant to do business with, and given the celebratory “tae-han-min-guk” tone this article, South Korean consumers probably won’t object to Daewoo pimping natural gas for the Burmese junta. I doubt we’ll even hear from our old friend Assemblyman Im Jung In, who briefly halted his support for Kim Jong Il’s agents in the South to denounce Burma’s slightly less horrid atrocities. I...

Human Rights/Southeast Asia

December 4, 2007

A North Korean Refugee in Belgium

Human Rights Without frontiers sends this refugee’s story, which I thought was interesting enough to pass along to you: HRWF Int’l (26.11.2007) – Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ – Email: info@hrwf.net. Kim M. W., 31 years old, arrived in Belgium this year. He is one of the rare North Korean refugees to have requested asylum in Belgium, even though it is open to the repressed people of North Korea. Human Rights Without Frontiers met him in Brussels. HRWF: What was your life like...

Human Rights/Refugees

December 4, 2007

Liberation Through Litigation, Part 2

Way back in the very early days of this blog, I proposed that North Korean workers should be able to sue their government for coercive and abusive labor practices under the Alien Tort Statute of 1789. In fact, the statute was recently used with success against Unocal Corporation for its use of forced labor in a pipeline project in Burma. Just watch Kaesong empty out if that ever comes to pass. I had mentioned the idea once or twice since...

Human Rights/U.S. Law

December 3, 2007

Camp 14: An Other-Than-Human Existence

[Update: I almost forgot this UPI link, and thanks to the friend who forwarded the link. Sometimes, I think it’s your blog, and I just assemble it. It’s certainly easier for me that way, and much more interesting.] If you have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, Camp 14 survivor Shin Dong-Hyuk has an opinion piece published describing life inside a place that no other prisoner has ever escaped to describe. If you don’t, a number of other pieces...

Human Rights/The Camps

November 27, 2007

Day of Infamy

GI Korea points to a rather remarkable historical coincidence, first noted by OFK reader and friend Professor Lee Sung Yoon. It would be pretty embarrasing to the South Korean government . . . if it had any shame at all.

"United" Nations/Human Rights

November 27, 2007

The Pressure Is Off on Human Rights in North Korea

North Korea no longer feels the constraint of international pressure — particularly American pressure — so it believes that it has a free hand to try to increase its internal control by any means necessary. Witness last week’s decision by South Korea to abstain again from a U.N. resolution condemning the North, a reversal of a hard-won gain. Two of the ways the regime is trying to reassert itself: tightening its border controls and carrying out more public executions. It’s...

Diplomacy/Human Rights

November 24, 2007

Casualties of Banalities: The Arrest and Coming Death of Yoo Sang-Joon

One of the bravest men I have ever met is locked in a Chinese prison this weekend, facing the risk of being sent back to certain execution in his native North Korea. His story stands for the human suffering that endures while diplomats craft a controversial agreement to disarm North Korea of its nuclear weapons and to grant its dictator, Kim Jong-il, the peace treaty and the recognition that his regime has sought for decades. [The Sunday Times, Michael Sheridan]...

"United" Nations/Activism/China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees/U.S. Politics

November 23, 2007

South Korea Abstains Again

. . . in a U.N. vote to condemn North Korea’s human rights atrocities (via Korea Unification Studies). They abstain, for the record, from condemning this, or this, or this. Or this. Almost exactly a year ago, after years of abstentions, the South Koreans finally yielded to intense pressure and voted in favor. What changed? My theory is that America’s betrayal gave the South Koreans cover. Remember that next time anyone tries to argue that our diplomacy with North Korea...

"United" Nations/Human Rights

November 20, 2007

Global Protest Against China’s Brutality Toward N. Korean Refugees — Nov. 30 – Dec. 1

The list of locations scheduled to hold demonstrations is impressive; organizers will target Chinese embassies and consulates in Washington, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Brussels, Toronto, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Oslo, London, Amsterdam, Seoul, and Madrid. That represents significant growth since past demonstrations, something that’s very welcome at a discouraging moment when the Bush Administration has pretty much sold out the entire cause. If you don’t know what we’re upset about, here’s a good introduction to the issue....

Activism/China/China & Korea/Refugees

September 3, 2007

In Lafayette Park Now: Reading the Names of 83,000 Abductees

[Update 3: This demonstration came up in a State Department news briefing today. From the comments of both the spokesman and Chris Hill, State is clearly backing away from calling these abductions acts of terrorism. After unambiguously calling the abductions terrorists acts in 2006, State is now airbrushing this issue out of the record. To a degree, you can understand this in the case of South Korea — tragic as that may be — because in the end, it is...

Abductions/Activism

September 1, 2007

Shot for Watching ‘Winter Sonata’

“There have been two or three reports of public executions of North Korean young people in major cities including Chungjin, as punishment for having illegally copied and distributed South Korean visual material,” said Kang Chul Hwan, vice-chairman of the Seoul-based Committee for the Democratization of North Korea. “It is not an overstatement to say that the Kim Jong Il regime is waging war on the South Korean TV drama,” he said, adding that the North Korean authorities have intensified surveillance...

Censorship/Human Rights/Inside NK

August 20, 2007

The Shenyang Six Are Freed

Do you still remember their story, the arrest of Adrian Hong and the courageous LiNK activists, and the shame on our Consul General in Shenyang? I had given up all hope, but others did not, and their persistence has been repaid with six lives. WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug. 20 – Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) today announced that six North Korean refugees imprisoned by Chinese authorities last December were recently released from a prison in Shenyang. The six – which...

Activism/Refugees

August 4, 2007

Beyond the Drum Circle: Stopping Genocide in the Real World

There is within us some hidden power, mysterious and secret, which keeps us going, keeps us alive, despite the natural law. If we cannot live on what is permitted, we live on what is forbidden. That is no disgrace for us. What is permitted is no more than an agreement, and what is forbidden derives from the same agreement. If we do not accept the agreement, it is not binding on us. And particularly where this forbidden and permitted comes...

"United" Nations/Human Rights/U.S. Law

July 25, 2007

LiNK Seeking Resettlement Volunteers for North Korean Refugees in the United States

This is from LiNK‘s latest newsletter: As the number of North Korean refugees arriving in the US for resettlement increases, we can also expect increasing numbers of unaccompanied refugee minors (children or teenagers), many of them orphaned entirely, and all who will be starting new lives in America. We are seeking families to become foster families for these children that can help to serve as a bridge between two very different cultures. Families with a Korean-American background or Korean-speaking ability...