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Category: Human Rights

April 3, 2006

Lefkowitz Denounces Kaesong Slave Labor; U.S. Continues to Squeeze NK’s Finances

It’s like they’re reading this blog . . . or perhaps great minds just think alike. You may recall that recently, I blogged about a media visit to the Kaesong Industrial Park. Piecing together several excellent reports allowed one to gather: (1) the extraordinary degree of control over the North Korean workers; (2) the extraordinary degree of supervision of the South Korean visitors; (3) the fact that the North Korean workers actually receive just $8 a month, not the widely-reported...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/An Alliance?/Appeasement/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Diplomacy/Human Rights/NK Economics/North Korea/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
April 1, 2006

2ID KATUSA Escapes Captivity in N. Korea

Some translation is appropriate for non-military readers: KATUSA means Korean Augmentee to the U.S. Army, and 2ID means Second Infantry Division, a brigade of which remains stretched out in an arc perpendicular to the Northern approaches to Seoul. Hundreds of KATUSAs still serve with U.S. Army units there today, but the first KATUSAs served during the Korean War. Here’s what happened to one of them: Lee participated in the Korean War after enlisting in August 1950 as a Korea auxiliary...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/China & Korea/Defectors/Human Rights/Korean History/North Korea/Refugees/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
March 30, 2006

White House Calls for China to Release NK Refugee

This is an encouraging development. Can anyone recall the White House getting involved on behalf of a North Korean refugee before this? STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY The United States is gravely concerned about China’s treatment of Kim Chun-Hee. Despite U.S., South Korean, and UNHCR attempts to raise this case with the Chinese, Ms. Kim, an asylum seeker in her thirties, was deported to North Korea after being arrested in December for seeking refuge at two Korean schools in China....

Categories China/China & Korea/Defectors/Human Rights/Refugees/Uncategorized
March 30, 2006

China’s Own Unit 731?

If true, this report removes China’s human rights issue to a whole new depth of depravity. There is a horrifying story going around the world: In the northeast of China, thousands of prisoners are being held, so that they can be killed for their organs. The prisoners are practitioners of Falun Gong, the meditation-and-exercise system. The facility at which they are being held — called a “concentration camp” or a “death camp” — is at Sujiatun. Chinese human-rights activists believe...

Categories China/Human Rights
March 30, 2006

Congress (Again) Considers Asylum for WMD Witnesses

The provision is similar to one that was a part of the failed North Korean Freedom Act, and was inserted into the Immigration Bill by Senator Sam Brownback, the greatest champion of the North Korean people in that body. Unless you’ve been in a secluded location, you may realize that the House and Senate have yet to bridge major difference in that bill. Still, this quote encouraged me: One Washington source said, “Last year, the North Korea policy was much...

Categories Defectors/Human Rights/Refugees/Washington Views/WMD
March 30, 2006

Jay Lefkowitz Interviewed in the Donga Ilbo

I’ll simply link this and recommend it in its entirety. The interviewer asks informed and sharp questions on refugees, regime change, and food aid. Lefkowitz’s answers were adequate but obviously scripted. He’s trying to give the impression that the U.S. will soon start accepting refugees without getting ahead of the Administration; I’m cautiously inclined to believe him, mainly based on other information I’ve heard.

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Refugees/Uncategorized/Washington Views
March 30, 2006

Did the Chosun Ilbo Puff Up the “Yodok Story” Story?

A trusted reader in Seoul, Brendan Brown,  is casting doubt on the Chosun Ilbo’s story reporting that “Yodok Story” is a sold-out runway success (see this entry, and this one).  The reader says of the Chosun report: [I]t’s crap. I got my wife to call today and ask about the availability of seats for the performances before and a[f]ter April 17 and there are many seats available. A friend of mine who went before I did also said that most...

Categories Activism/Censorship/Korean Society/Media Criticism
March 28, 2006

First Act, Last Laugh

Update: New information (see comments) suggests that the Chosun Ilbo may have considerably exaggerated the success of “Yodok Story;” the government also looks to be backing away from denying that it put pressure on producers and investors. Update 2 (8/06): I withhold final judgment, but the preponderence of reports I’ve heard go like this: plenty of empty seats at the first curtain call, but the seats tended to fill up to nearly full with the late arrival of ticketholders. Original...

Categories Activism/Censorship/Defectors/Democracy/Human Rights/Korean Law/Korean Society/Media Criticism/Refugees
March 28, 2006

LiNK Learns Flash

The Jawa Report has a must-see flash movie from LiNK, whose sophistication at spreading a powerful message continues to grow. I spoke to Adrian Hong today, and I don’t believe he’d mind me saying that he sounds weary, like a man working himself to the point of sheer exhaustion. If you have even a small amount of extra time or money on your hands, they could use it for a good purpose. Please hit their PayPal button or volunteer some...

Categories Activism/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights
March 27, 2006

Brace Yourself for Labor Unrest (Unless You Own Slaves)

The strike season is starting. While still living in Korea, I had the inspiration for a new business model, “Demo Land.”  Your entrance fee of just W30,000 would cover equipment rental (signs, drums, headbands, riot shields, tear gas, fire bombs), bail, and E.R. treatment.  Great fun for those who mainly do it for the entertainment of it all, which seems to be most, with an occasional legitimate grievance to be found in there somewhere.  I’d put it somewhere near Yangjae,...

Categories Human Rights/Humor/Satire/Korean Society/NK Economics
March 24, 2006

Clouds Over the Minsk Spring

Who among us is as brave as these people? The crackdown began just after 3 a.m., when police officers wearing black riot helmets and masks arrived on six large trucks and surrounded the small encampment in October Square. The demonstrators, who had been protesting a rigged presidential election last Sunday, stood their ground while the officers dismounted and jogged into place in lines, cutting off any chance of escape. The US and EU have finally agreed on something; both will...

Categories Democracy/Europe/Human Rights
March 23, 2006

Brussels Update

The Chosun Ilbo reports: International pressure on North Korea to improve its dismal human rights record increased on Wednesday, when the European Parliament decided to link humanitarian aid to the issue while a conference highlighting abuses in the North opened in the EU capital Brussels. Thursday sees the first hearing on North Korean human rights before the European Parliament. At the conference, which was led by activist groups from the U.S. and across Europe, Hungarian member of the European Parliament...

Categories Activism/Europe/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Refugees
March 23, 2006

Journalistic Integrity Thwarts the Thought Police

The Korean press earns heartfelt praise this week for showing courage in its convictions, and refusing to let itself be censored by the North Korean thought police. If only their government possessed the same clarity. It all began with one of those tortuous, strictly monitored “reunions” the North permits between divided families — this one at Mt. Kumgang. A number of those present on the North Korean side were in fact abducted South Korean citizens, perhaps hoping for a last...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Censorship/Human Rights/Media Criticism
March 1, 2006

Comrade Chung to Visit Kaesong

Must be an election coming . . . . He said he would also ask opposition party leaders to join the trip, and was pushing for a meeting with Kim Jong-il and other senior North Korean leaders.  The Grand National Party dismissed Mr. Chung’s invitation yesterday, calling a trip to North Korea an old-fashioned way for politicians to promote themselves before an election. As OFK alumni already know, Chung has a signed  pact with Satan, and I have the photo...

Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Humor/Satire/Korean Politics/NK Economics
March 1, 2006

New Docu on S. Korea’s Abductees

I had no idea there were so many: [T]he director of “People of No Return”, a haunting documentary about 30,000 South Korean civilians abducted to North Korea during and after the war, has intentionally made his film dry to avoid political biases, and packs it instead with statistics, documents and footage from historical archives. The film, which took three years to complete, is to be screened at the New York International Film and Video Festival in May.

Categories Abductions/Human Rights/Korean Society
February 28, 2006

Korea’s ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ Bubble

This week, several new reports, chiefly those from the New York Times and the LA Times, describe a journalists’ group tour of the Kaesong Industrial Park, possibly the only place on earth where the spirits of P.T. Barnum(*) and Lavrenti Beria cohabitate. A Paradise Within a (Worker’s) Paradise In North Korea, a nation that is essentially one vast open-air prison, Kaesong is the new prison laundry — a relatively cushier, marginally less despotic part of the institution into which you...

Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Inside NK/NK Economics/North Korea