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Category: 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
July 31, 2014

Refugees, geeks to join forces at “Hack North Korea”

The Human Rights Foundation, “a New York-based group that focuses on closed societies,” will host a two-day “hackathon” this coming weekend to “harness the technical prowess of Silicon Valley to come up with new ways to get information safely into North Korea.” The event’s title is “Hack North Korea.” Several prominent North Korean defectors will attend the event including pro-democracy activist Park Sang-hak, former North Korean child prisoner Kang Chol-hwan, media personality Park Yeon-mi and Kim Heung-Kwang, a former professor...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Subversion
July 28, 2014

Is the U.S. ready to take N. Korea’s crimes against humanity to the Security Council?

On balance, probably not, but hey, it’s an election year, which may or may not explain why it’s making noise like it might: The United States, France and Australia called for the United Nations Security Council to deal with North Korea’s human rights violations, a news report said Saturday. It isn’t clear why this push is happening nearly six months after the release of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) report; after all, the testimony before the COI was widely covered in...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights
July 15, 2014

You’d be surprised how much tougher our Zimbabwe and Belarus sanctions are than our North Korea sanctions.

The Treasury Department has just tightened its sanctions regulations on … Zimbabwe, more than doubling the number of Zimbabwean entities on Treasury’s List of Specially Designated Nationals (called the SDN List) from 77 to 161, including “President” Robert Mugabe, his wife, and his son. The sanctions are largely directed at the Mugabe regime’s human rights violations, corruption, and subversion of the democratic process. Here, from Treasury’s Federal Register notice, is a summary of what those sanctions do: Section 1(a) of...

Categories Human Rights/Sanctions
June 20, 2014

Benefit concert this Sunday at the Kennedy Center

On Sunday, June 29th, 7:30 p.m., at the Kennedy Center, the lovely ladies of the Ahn Trio will perform in a benefit concert for Shin Dong-Hyok’s NGO, Inside NK: Inside NK presents the Ahn Trio in a concert performance featuring works by Bunch, Piazzolla, and Balakrishnan. Hailed as “exacting and exciting musicians” by the Los Angeles Times, the three sisters of the Ahn Trio have earned a distinguished reputation for embracing 21st century classical music with their unique style and...

Categories Activism
June 19, 2014

ROK Human Rights Ambassador uses “G” word at congressional hearing

You can watch yesterday’s hearing before the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations at this link. I don’t have time to hit all of the main points, but broadly – (1) I was astonished by the strength of Amb. Lee Jong-hoon’s remarks. Lee is South Korea’s Ambassador-at-Large for Human Rights. Along with his prepared statement, he presented this report by the British law firm Hogan Lovells, which draws from the U.N. COI report’s evidence...

Categories Human Rights
April 25, 2014

Breaking! N. Korean gulag prisoners celebrate liberation by Samantha Power’s hashtag

The Talmud scholars have long written that it isn’t given to any generation of human beings to correct every wrong and every injustice. But neither are we excused from our obligation to try. And that is the challenge as an international community we face this week. It isn’t given to any generation, or members of the Security Council or the great officers of the world, to right every wrong. But surely we are not excused from our obligation to make...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights
April 22, 2014

N. Korea keeps it classy, calls Chair of U.N. Commission “a disgusting old lecher with 40-odd-year-long career of homosexuality”

Last week, the Honorable Michael Kirby, a retired Justice of the High Court of Australia, and the Chairman of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry for Human Rights in North Korea, was in Washington. It was my honor to be invited to two events with Justice Kirby — a small-group breakfast meeting (Kirby called this is a “barbarous” custom) hosted by the Australian Embassy, and a small-group dinner hosted by a member of the Board of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea....

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/WTF?
April 8, 2014

HRNK to host address by Michael Kirby, other events next week

The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea will host a series of events next week. From HRNK’s site: – Human Rights in North Korea: An Address by Michael Kirby. On April 14, the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings and the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) will host an address by Michael Kirby, chair of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea (COI), to present its findings and recommendations. Following...

Categories Human Rights
March 28, 2014

North Korea speaker series in Seoul, April and May

At the request of the North Korea Strategy Center (NKSC), a Seoul-based NGO run by “Aquariums of Pyongyang” author Kang Cheol Hwan (nksc.co.kr), I’m passing along this information about a speaker series on North Korea NKSC is holding in Seoul for the international community there. Entitled “Strategies for Change: A Speaker Series on North Korea,” the three month long series features nine speakers talking on a range of topics, from “North Korea basics” (the country’s economy and nuclear issue) and...

Categories Activism/Human Rights
March 25, 2014

Samantha Power, North Korea is your Rwanda

Now that anyone who cares has digested the U.N. Commission of Inquiry’s report on North Korea, the conversation has turned to a more practical question: So what? The E.U. and Japan are reportedly drafting a resolution for consideration by the Security Council that would (1) condemn North Korea for its crimes, (2) call “for its leaders to face international justice,” (3) impose travels sanctions on specific leaders deemed responsible, and (4) refer the COI report to the International Criminal Court....

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Six-Party Talks
March 24, 2014

For China, holocaust denial substitutes for diplomacy

It’s offensively obtuse things like this that convince me that Chinese will eventually be as despised in North Korea as Japan is despised in South Korea, and that its profiteers won’t be safe to walk the streets of Rajin:  “The inability of the commission to get support and cooperation from the country concerned makes it impossible for the commission to carry out its mandate in an impartial, objective and effective manner,” said Chen Chuandong, a counselor at China’s mission in...

Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea/Human Rights
March 23, 2014

Event tomorrow on the COI report

I apologize for the short notice, but tomorrow at 2:45 p.m., the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the Foreign Policy Initiative will co-sponsor an event: “North Korea’s Human Rights Violations – What Next After the U.N. Commission of Inquiry Report?,” at Room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Melanie Kirkpatrick and Christopher Griffin will moderate, and panelists will include Hyeonsoo Lee, Roberta Cohen, and Greg Scarlatoiu.

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights
March 6, 2014

Open Sources, March 6, 2014

~  1  ~ THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO CAME to this event on Capitol Hill yesterday and helped make it a huge success. We filled the room well beyond its capacity. There was an energy in the room that went beyond the question of numbers. It was who was there — young, old, in-between, conservatives, liberals, and a variety of ethnicities, including a very sizable Korean-American contingent. I don’t have words to express my admiration for the leadership of Suzanne...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Politics
March 3, 2014

Events in Seoul about human rights in North Korea, March 6th and 15th

If you’re in Seoul, there are two upcoming events about human rights in the North. The organizers asked me to get the word out, and I’m glad to oblige. First, Justice for North Korea will hold a special screening of “Apostle,” a film about human rights in North Korea on Thursday, March 6th, at 7:30, to mark the UN COI’s recent report. After the screening, Peter Jung, director of Justice For North Korea, will present his book “Persecution,” which discussed...

Categories Activism/Human Rights
February 28, 2014

Please attend next Wednesday: House Foreign Affairs Committee to host event on U.N. Commission report

On March 5th at 3 p.m., the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold an event with a panel discussion featuring leaders of prominent human rights NGOs, including Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and Human Rights Watch. The Federation of Korean Associations in the U.S.A. will also participate — they’ve emerged as strong and highly effective advocates for the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act this year. Also present will be Suzanne Scholte, head...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. Politics
February 27, 2014

Boston Globe endorses the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act

The Boston Globe, a newspaper with “a long and proud tradition of being a progressive institution,” writes: Nevertheless, there is much the United States can do unilaterally to step up the pressure on this irresponsible regime. Passing the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act of 2013 is a logical step that would ensure that bad behavior faces consequences. Much as Iran was confronted with crippling financial sanctions, the act would punish international financial institutions that do dirty work for North Korea. Under the act, the president of...

Categories Human Rights/Sanctions
February 21, 2014

More Reactions to the N. Korea COI report, including our latest in The Washington Post

~  1  ~ Nicholas Eberstadt has written something for The Wall Street Journal that is so cogent, so poetic, that I envy him for writing it (hat tip: Sung Yoon-Lee). Never again should Western humanitarian aid be given to North Korea to hand out at its own discretion, as if Pyongyang were a government like any other. Never again must Beijing—which like Pyongyang refused to cooperate with the U.N. investigation—be given a free pass for financing, enabling and protecting this most odious...

Categories Human Rights