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Category: Human Rights

February 1, 2007

Czechs End N. Korea Slave Trade

Czech authorities have decided to end the practice of having North Koreans work in Czech factories under what one human rights organization has described as “slave” conditions. “We have decided not to offer new work visas to North Korean citizens and not to prolong the existing visas,” the Interior Ministry official responsible for asylum and migration policy, Tomas Haisman, said in an interview. The ministry announced the decision, citing October’s U.N. resolution condemning and imposing sanctions on Pyongyang because of...

Categories Europe/Human Rights/Human Trafficking
January 26, 2007

Shenyang Six Update

LiNK sends: Hello Friends,     …. It feels strange to be back here in Washington at LiNK headquarters, typing away at a computer. For those of you who have been following the news, the past few weeks have not been calm and restful- they have been rather dramatic and urgent. On December 21, 2006, myself, two LiNK field workers and 6 North Korean refugees were caught and imprisoned by Chinese authorities. I was taken into custody in Beijing, and...

Categories Activism/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
January 19, 2007

One POW’s Repatriated Wife Already Reported Dead

She apparently was in ill health and froze to death in police custody, according to Yonhap. I’ll have a link and more details later.  [Update:   here:] One of the nine, who was the wife of a South Korean prisoner of war, apparently froze to death one month ago while she was being questioned by North Korean security authorities after they were deported to the North, a source familiar with North Korean affairs said. The woman, the source said he...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/China & Korea/Human Rights/Korean War
January 17, 2007

Sorry ‘Bout That: How a South Korean Consulate Helped Doom Nine Family Members of Its POWs

[Scroll down for updates.]   Thirty-one years after the North Koreans kidnapped him from his fishing boat, 67 year-old Choi Uk Il is back in South Korea with the wife who never lost faith in him, and after his own government’s Shenyang consulate nearly turned him away.  You can’t help but admire the ferocious loyalty of his wife, who raised their children on a cleaning lady’s salary, kept faith with her husband, and then cowed the faithless Ministry of Foreign...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Human Rights/Refugees
January 17, 2007

Ministry of Empty Promises

Ban Ki Moon tells us how he’ll make the United Nations relevant again: “I pledge my best efforts to help the Iraqi people in their quest for a more stable and prosperous Iraq,” he said. “On North Korea, I will try my best to facilitate the smooth process of the six-party process, and encourage in any way I can the work for a denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” He said he wanted to see substantive progress on the Millennium Development...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/WMD
January 16, 2007

China Calls on North Korea to Return Abductees

Some interesting statements emerged from a trilateral summit in Cebu: The leaders of Japan, China and South Korea urged North Korea Sunday to scrap its nuclear weapons and to respond to international humanitarian concerns. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun made the plea in a joint statement after the first summit between the three nations in two years. It is rare for China publicly to raise humanitarian concerns about North Korea....

Categories Abductions/China/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Human Rights/WMD
January 13, 2007

Shenyang Six Update

From LiNK: We know how agonizing it is to think of the possible fate of the Shenyang Six if things do not go well in negotiations with People’s Republic of China. Please rest assured that we are doing all that we can. The instant there is a role for us all in the grassroots to play, you will hear about it, and we will mobilize internationally for the six. At the moment, we are waiting on high-level discussions and working...

Categories Activism/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
January 7, 2007

N. Korean Freedom Coalition Protests Thai Generals’ Pact With China’s Inhumanity

You may recall my previous post about the decision of the Thai military government to launch an “offensive” against North Korean refugees crossing into Thailand after a long and dangerous journey through China. The decision, by a government run by a military junta, reverses what had been the most humane policy in an undemocratic region. As is often true, democracy was only the first casualty; humanity soon became the next casualty. The generals’ decision comes despite the fact that the...

Categories "United" Nations/China/Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia
January 7, 2007

Chinese Police Raid LiNK Refuge, Arrest Three U.S. Activists and Six Refugees

Update 1: I’m going to bump this post up a few times. Meanwhile, I second Kyochan’s advice: Digg the story. I didn’t have an account, but it only took a few seconds to sign up. And I see that Reporters Without Borders is e-mailing half the world over … Saddam Hussein’s execution! Well, here, here! Let’s exhume the old bus-bombing rapist. Scroll down to see my response, and RSF’s reply to that. They claim not to have an opinion on...

Categories Activism/China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
January 5, 2007

Whatever Happened to Jay Lefkowitz?

The Washington Post sets a new milestone by reading my mind when it asks the question. The position of Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea was created in the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, which President Bush signed in November of that year. After a long delay in filling the post, President Bush finally nominated Lefkowitz. Despite a few promising words and some forthright challenges to South Korean appeasement and apathy, the White House has never...

Categories America/Human Rights/Washington Views
January 2, 2007

KBS Confirms It: N. Korean Workers in Europe Are Slaves

Thanks to Mingi Hyun for forwarding, and to my wife for translation assistance.  Report, with video, here. KBS has confirmed that North Korean workers’ pay in East Europe is sent to a North Korean government account.  The Czech government learned that most of the workers’ pay was sent to the North Korean government and has stopped issuing work visas for North Korean workers. . . . The underwear factory is in the small village of Zebrac (phonetic), in the Czech...

Categories Human Rights/Human Trafficking/NK Economics
December 21, 2006

Slavery, Then and Now

Apparently,  North Korean restaurants are popular in China, for everyone except the young women who are forced to work in them.  Fortunately, China is a good enough neighbor to help North Korea hunt the absconders down.     Remind you of anything?     This is about as clear a case of human trafficking as you’ll ever see.  In a just world, China would get sanctions for this.  In the world in which we really live, the James Bakers and...

Categories China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Human Trafficking
December 20, 2006

Bangkok Post: Thai Military Gov’t Orders ‘Offensive’ Against N. Korean Refugees

Thanks to a reader for forwarding this.  Chiang Rai _ Immigration authorities in the North are going on the offensive to try to stem the influx of North Korean migrants by tipping off China where the migrants are hiding before they enter Thailand illegally. Pol Col Jessada Yaisoon, the immigration checkpoint chief for Mae Sai district, said immigration officers would use more pro-active measures which necessitate approaching China, the ”upstream country” of the problem. The government has been alarmed by...

Categories China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia
December 19, 2006

If I Were a Member of the North Korean Elite, I, Too Would Be Buying Up Gold and Chinese Real Estate

One of the least recognized moral responsibilities assumed by authoritarian states is the responsibility for misspent words and wealth they choose to get into the business of controlling. For example, when the South Korean government dabbles in the control of objectionable speech, whether for political or nationalistic reasons, it assumes responsibility for the decision to license, by omission, (and sometimes, even to subsidize) other objectionable or controversial speech. To a much greater extent, North Korea, which aspires to a higher...

Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights
December 18, 2006

Phillip Buck Featured in WSJ

Underground railroad worker Phillip Buck,  recently released from a Chinese prison,  has told Melanie Kirkpatrick  about his activities, his  arrest, and even his new identity: Pastor Buck is nothing if not determined. In 2002, while in a Southeast Asian country with a group of refugees he had guided there, his apartment in Yanji city, in northeast China, was raided. Nineteen refugees were captured and a copy of his passport was confiscated. With his identity now compromised, Mr. Buck returned to...

Categories China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees/Uncategorized
December 12, 2006

On Second Thought, We Can Too Remain Silent (Updated)

Update:   To extend the Marmot’s comment on this issue, sometimes it is necessary to call bullshit to cry freedom.  I thought it would be fun to contrast the South Korean Human Rights Commission’s  refusal of jurisdiction  to investigate or talk about human rights in North  Korea with its March 26,  2003  condemnation of the U.S.-coalition invasion of Iraq.  As I found this morning, the English versions of the HRC’s previous statements and annual reports  had recently and mysteriously vanished...

Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Unintended Humor/WTF?
December 9, 2006

New Report on North Korean Refugees

The report, from the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, mainly deals with the problem of absorbing refugees into South Korean society.  There are five authors; Andrei Lankov wrote one chapter, and Marcus Noland and Stephen Haggard edited the paper itself.  It’s a long read, so in a few days’ time, I may bump this post up, and those of us who’ve read it can discuss further.  Really, from what I’ve read, it sounds like an open letter...

Categories Defectors/Human Rights/Refugees