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Category: Human Rights

October 2, 2014

Park: Human rights are part of “our core agenda” with North Korea

I wonder whether, when, and how these words might actually translate into tangible policy: On Tuesday, Park made it clear that the North’s nuclear and human rights issues are “our core agenda in our policy toward North Korea. “We should not be passive in these issues out of fear of North Korea’s backlash,” Park said in a Cabinet meeting, a comment that marked a clear departure from her liberal predecessors who rarely spoke about the human rights issue as they...

Categories Human Rights/North-South
September 29, 2014

U.N.’s Seoul field office to collect evidence of human rights violations in North Korea.

South Korea will soon begin working-level talks with the United Nations to discuss the specifics of establishing a U.N. field office in Seoul on North Korean human rights, officials said Wednesday. [….] The U.N. has later proposed setting up the field office in South Korea to collect evidence and testimonies on the North Korean regime’s human rights violations, which the South Korean government has accepted. [….] North Korea has also warned it will launch “merciless punishment” on those involved in...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights
September 29, 2014

Would it be slander if I called Rep. Sim Jae-kwon a fascist masquerading as a liberal?

A South Korean opposition lawmaker filed a resolution Thursday calling for the implementation of past inter-Korean agreements to stop slander between the two sides. The resolution, submitted by Rep. Sim Jae-kwon of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD), calls on the two Koreas to recognize that mutual recognition and respect are the basis for trust-building. It also urges the two sides to honor such agreements as the joint statement of July 1972, which bans cross-border slander. [Yonhap]...

Categories Activism/Censorship/Refugees
September 25, 2014

Seoul to Pyongyang: Let’s talk about human rights.

“Not only in high-level talks but also in any occasions of inter-Korean dialogue in the future, (Seoul) expects to have comprehensive discussion on all sorts of humanitarian issues including human rights,” unification ministry spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol said in a briefing. “If high-level talks are held (between Seoul and Pyongyang), I think it is desirable that they discuss all the issues they want to discuss including this (human rights) issue,” Lim said. [Yonhap] I’m not terribly impressed with Park Geun-Hye’s attention...

Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/North-South/Sunshine
September 24, 2014

Kerry to North Korea: “[C]lose those camps … shut this evil system down.”

It’s no secret to readers of this site that I’ve never been an admirer of John Kerry. His tenure has been a rolling catastrophe for our national security, in a way that even a rank amateur could have predicted years ago. It’s often difficult to see that he has a North Korea policy at all. Not so long ago, I criticized Kerry for showing no sign of pressing for action on the U.N. Commission of Inquiry report on human rights in North Korea. But...

Categories "United" Nations/Diplomacy/Human Rights
September 23, 2014

4th Annual North Korean Human Rights International Film Festival

NKnet is hosting its 4th annual North Korean Human Rights International Film Festival this coming Friday and Saturday, September 26-27, in Gwanghwamun, Seoul. This year there are 14 films from Korea, the US, and Saudi Arabia, and two of the films received financial support from the festival: November 9th 100 min. – Korea – documentary – no English subtitles Directed by: Kim Gyu-Min (the director of Winter Butterfly, which played at the first NHIFF in 2011) Category: Reunification of the...

Categories Books & Films/Defectors/Human Rights/Refugees
September 23, 2014

North Korean Gulag survivors call on Switzerland to freeze Kim Jong Un’s slush funds (Alternate title: Cursed are the Cheesemakers).

Switzerland has always been there for North Korea. When North Koreans were starving to death in heaps, Switzerland was there to receive Kim Jong Il’s personal shopper and sell him millions of dollars’ worth of its finest timepieces. When North Korea needed creative new ways to make money – literally! – Switzerland sold it the very same intaglio presses and optically variable ink our Bureau of Engraving and Printing uses to make money. When Kim Jong Un needed a place...

Categories Activism/Anju Links/Europe/Money Laundering/Refugees/Sanctions
September 23, 2014

Park Sang Hak is a very brave man.

Park and the Fighters for a Free North Korea, most of whom are North Korean refugees, ignored a letter from Pyongyang to the office of South Korea’s President that, according to Yonhap, “alluded to retaliation” against their next leaflet balloon launch: Defying the warning, 10 activists from Fighters for Free North Korea launched 10 big balloons carrying 200,000 anti-North Korea leaflets into the sky in Paju, north of Seoul. The waterproof leaflets contain messages denouncing the three-generation power transfer in...

Categories Activism/Propaganda/Refugees/Subversion/Terrorism (NK)
September 19, 2014

LiNK Fundraiser in Long Beach on Oct. 25: 5K for Freedom

From LiNK’s site: 5K for FREEDOM is an all ages event raising funds for Liberty in North Korea. You are welcome to walk, run, bike, rollerblade, jog, push a stroller, or whatever you’d like! This is a non-competitive 5K designed to encourage fun while raising money for a good cause. Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) is a non-profit working with North Korean refugees in hiding in China. These are families, grandmothers, children, daughters, etc. They risked their lives escaping North...

Categories Activism/Anju Links
September 11, 2014

Fifty a day, every Tuesday. Men. Women. Children.

“These days, China trucks about 50 North Korean defectors from its immigration detention center in Tumen to North Korea’s Namyang city just across the border every Tuesday,” an activist said, citing an unidentified Chinese official familiar with the matter. He did not elaborate on the official’s identity for fear of possible reprisal against her by the Chinese government. [Yonhap] Update: The title of this post was edited after publication, adding the words “every Tuesday.”

Categories China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
September 10, 2014

Self-described feminist Christine Ahn was not available for comment

”A deadly motorcycle accident involving drunken female college students linked to gambling and drugs in North Korea’s capital Pyongyang has led to a government campaign to promote ‘woman’s morality’ in the reclusive nation, according to sources.” [Radio Free Asia] That seems rather … patriarchal, if not sexist. But then, when it comes to North Korea, this is still low on the hierarchy of indignities, burdens, and horrors that women endure.

Categories Human Rights
August 29, 2014

Australian MP calls for divestment from mining venture in N. Korea

”To maintain its iron-fisted hold over the North Korean population, the Pyongyang regime needs hard currency, and it is clear that these projects could provide billions of dollars to the North Korean leadership.” [Michael Danby, MP] It won’t surprise you that I oppose any investment in an unreformed North Korea that continues to slaughter its own people and menace its neighbors. I believe that those who justify investment as a driver of reform have it completely backwards, that investing in the...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Sanctions
August 20, 2014

John Kerry was right about North Korea (and so was John Bolton)

More than six months after a U.N. Commission of Inquiry found Kim Jong Un responsible for crimes against humanity, our State Department has offered no credible or coherent policy response to that report. At least it hadn’t until last week, when our Secretary of State, John Kerry — no doubt, after much agonizing deliberation — finally authorized the deployment of precision-guided tactical ballistic words: “But make no mistake, we are also speaking out about the horrific human rights situation,” Kerry...

Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/Media Criticism
August 13, 2014

First as tragedy, then as farce

The story I linked Monday about Michael Kirby’s comments spurring the U.N. to action in North Korea eventually grew into two posts, because in the same story, Kirby also warned against trivializing what’s happening in North Korea. The Commission of Inquiry, which reported to the UN in March, detailed horrific abuses of human rights in North Korea, including starving political prisoners reduced to eating grass and rodents in secret gulags, schoolchildren made to watch firing squad executions, and women forced...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Books & Films/Censorship
August 9, 2014

Must hear: Kurt Achin’s podcast from Hack North Korea

I think Thor Halvorssen is my new idol. Most people believe that the North Korean government — and emphasis on government — is an issue that should be addressed by governments, or by a collection of governments. Well, we believe in helping people. We believe in peer-to-peer networks. We are not interested in, you know, running to the U.N., which has been oh-so-extraordinary at stopping genocides from occurring — that’s dripping in sarcasm. We don’t believe the United Nations is...

Categories Activism/Human Rights
August 5, 2014

Wanted: Information about North Korea’s cell phone tracking gear

THE DAILY NK REPORTS that North Korean border guards are shaking down and extorting border-area residents suspected of making illegal cross-border phone calls: Secret agents in border areas of North Korea are extorting payoffs from residents in exchange for keeping silent about illicit international phone calls, an inside source has reported to Daily NK.  The source in North Hamkyung Province told Daily NK on July 22nd,  “At the beginning of this year they installed radio wave detectors around here to...

Categories Censorship/Human Rights