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Category: Human Rights

June 6, 2012

New Report Details North Korea’s Political Apartheid System

Today at 2 p.m., the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea will formally release its new report, “Marked for life: Songbun, North Korea’s Social Classification System.” Here is an extended excerpt: The songbun system in some ways resembles the apartheid race-based classification system of South Africa. Songbun subdivides the population of the country into 51 categories or ranks of trustworthiness and loyalty to the Kim family and North Korean state. These many categories are grouped into three broad castes:...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights
June 1, 2012

State Department’s New Country Report on Human Rights in North Korea Disappoints

The main development I take from the report it is that the regime seems to be moving in the direction of decentralizing its political detention system, opening up more smaller (and less visible) detention centers and possibly closing down one of the largest camps. The same NGO reported the police began to dismantle the sixth facility, Bukchang (Camp 18) in South Pyongan Province, in 2006 and it was unclear if the camp remained in operation in 2011. The NGO is...

Categories Human Rights/The Camps
May 11, 2012

Who Let North Korea into the Paralympics?

The Chosun Ilbo reports: North Korea will participate in the Paralympic Games for the first time ever in London this summer. A Yonhap News report cites Tokyo-based pro-North Korean media as saying that its athletes have been gearing up for the 2012 London Paralympics, which will run from late August to early September. It adds that North Korea was granted provisional membership in the International Paralympic Committee in March, and that its athletes are now training in China. Have any...

Categories Human Rights/Sports
May 8, 2012

Nobel Prize Winning President Ignores World’s Worst Human Rights Violations

Most of the people reading this blog probably have no idea who Robert King is, and that is a sad comment in itself.  King’s title is Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, a position that was created back in 2004, under a mostly forgotten and disregarded law called the North Korean Human Rights Act. In the Bush Administration, the office was initially filled by Jay Lefkowitz, a well-meaning man who initially came to Bush’s attention for his opposition...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Human Rights
May 7, 2012

Refugees: Thousands Die at Jeungsan Prison, N. Korea

It’s been about a month since I attended an event here in Washington for the publication of the new edition of The Hidden Gulag, a report that documents North Korea’s prison camp system in agonizing detail with witness testimony and satellite imagery. The report added many pages of valuable testimony and data to our knowledge of these camps, which are probably the worst human rights violation anywhere in this world today. Yet almost as soon as the report was published,...

Categories Human Rights/The Camps
April 10, 2012

New Edition of “The Hidden Gulag” Adds New Imagery, Witness Accounts to Our Understanding of North Korea’s Prison Camps

Here.  Of personal interest to me is that witnesses have confirmed that this is indeed Camp 12, Chongo-ri, and this is indeed Camp 25, Chongjin.  There aren’t any new images of Camp 16 here, but in a few days, I’ll be posting an entire page of imagery of that camp, and the nuclear test site next door.  Thanks to David Hawk, Chuck Downs, Greg Scarlatoiu, and the HRNK board for giving me the opportunity to help with this.  David’s first...

Categories Human Rights/The Camps
April 8, 2012

Kang Chol Hwan and Shin Dong-Hyok Petition the U.N. for the Release of Their Family Members

While researching an unrelated post, I stumbled on this brief (opens in .pdf), filed just this week on behalf of Kang Cho-Hwan and Shin Dong-Hyok, and authored by international human rights lawyer Jared Genser. Kang, for those not familiar with him, is a survivor of Camp 15, author of “The Aquariums of Pyongyang,” and now a correspondent for the widely circulated South Korean daily, the Chosun Ilbo. According to the brief, Kang’s sister and her 11-year old son disappeared last...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/The Camps
April 6, 2012

North Korean Human Rights Speaker Series in Seoul

For those of you in or near Seoul, NKnet is hosting a lecture series.  We have some extra DVD box sets of the films from last fall’s North Korean Human Rights International Film Festival, so anyone who attends four or more of the six programs will get a free set.  Below I’ve copied the details, or skip straight to the Facebook event page to RSVP.  For those of you who don’t live in Seoul but happen to live in Washington,...

Categories Human Rights
April 3, 2012

Rising attention on North Korea’s prison camps

A few years ago, I spent what felt like an hour or two on Skype with The Washington Post‘s Blaine Harden, sharing and explaining satellite imagery of North Korea’s prison camp system. No doubt, Harden talked to plenty of other people, too, and the result was an excellent report and interactive graphic about the camps. A few months later, Harden turned over the Post‘s North Korea coverage to Chico Harlan, and now we know why. Harden went on sabbatical to...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/The Camps
March 20, 2012

Demonstrations Today at the White House & Chinese Embassy

It’s probably too late to save 31 North Korean men, women, and children whom China is believed to have repatriated to North Korea this month, in flagrant violation of the U.N. Refugee Convention and its 1968 Protocol, both of which China signed. China committed this crime against humanity with malice aforethought and with characteristic arrogance, and despite a modest but rising protest movement in South Korea against the repatriations. We can only speculate as to the fate of these 31...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Refugees
March 14, 2012

Fisticuffs now officially more likely to save innocent life than appealing to the U.N.

Sure, we can complain that the United Nations has become a farce, but hey, we all elected for ’em, right? So you’ve heard that there are lives to be saved, and international conventions that would save them, if only some effective international body was capable of enforcing those conventions. Enter a group of members of the South Korean National Assembly, who flew to Geneva to make an appeal to the U.N. Human Rights Council to save about 30 North Korean...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/Refugees
February 24, 2012

China abets the murder of nine North Korean refugees

South Korean legislators on Friday condemned China’s repatriation of fugitives from North Korea after Beijing reportedly sent nine back despite pleas from Seoul. A resolution passed by the committee on foreign affairs and unification urges China to follow international rules in handling North Koreans who flee their impoverished homeland, and seeks outside help to halt the returns. [AFP] Seoul says it might (gasp) raise this with the U.N. Human Rights Council — without mentioning China by name. But despite all...

Categories AP Watch/China/Human Rights/Refugees
February 21, 2012

Entertainers Join Effort to “Save My Friend,” South Korean Lawmaker Launches Hunger Strike

Across the street from the Chinese Embassy in Seoul today was a busy place.  At 2 p.m. South Korean National Assemblywoman Park Sun Young of the Liberty Forward Party launched a hunger strike (I took the photo above around 5:40 p.m.). In a statement on Tuesday, Park said she plans to launch an “indefinite” hunger strike in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul to protest the forced repatriation of North Korean defectors by China. “At this very moment, China...

Categories Activism/China/Human Rights/Refugees
February 19, 2012

North Korean Refugees in China in Grave Danger of Repatriation

Update 2 (2/20): In addition to the letter to the Chinese government in the original post below that you can email, fax, or mail, there’s an online petition to the UNHCR and the UN Special Rapporteur that you can sign that’s rapidly collected almost 25,000 signatures. I also just read a related email sent on behalf of several groups saying that a) they’re on Twitter @savemyfriend (in Korean and English) and Facebook and b) are gathering across from the Chinese...

Categories Activism/China/Human Rights/Refugees
February 15, 2012

Calling Bob King

I haven’t seen any news coverage about Korean-Americans protesting against Xi Jinping over China’s policy of sending North Korean refugees to gulags and firing squads.  China has never been known for its great sensitivity to public opinion, of course, so I also have to wonder if Vice President Biden’s “frank discussions” with Xi, during the latter’s visit, included any mention of a large group of North Korean refugees — various reports number them at 21, 29, or 33 souls —...

Categories China/Diplomacy/Human Rights