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February 19, 2006

Europe Takes Up N.K. Human Rights Mantle

The EU’s human rights dialogue with North Korea’s regime may be predictably “moribund,” but  a new report shows that Europe is outperforming the United States in accepting refugees: Seven European nations have granted asylum to 280 North Korean defectors since the mid-1990s, Radio Free Asia reported on Saturday. RFA said Germany, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway gave asylum to 280 out of 700 North Korean refugees who applied there. Germany topped the list, accepting 232 out of...

Categories Defectors/Europe/Human Rights/Korean Politics/North Korea/Refugees
February 18, 2006

Sec. Rice: Lefkowitz Will Be More Vocal

It’s the latest suggestion that the Administration is less worried than ever about upsetting Kim Jong Il: The United States will have its North Korea human rights envoy become more active in coming days to get more international attention on the issue, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday. “We are going to get him out more,” Rice said at a U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee hearing. “We need the rest of the international community to also...

Categories Activism/An Alliance?/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
February 17, 2006

Will U.S. Finally Let in N.K. Refugees?

It’s long past time we did this.  The U.S. government plans to break with long-established policy and start giving asylum to refugees from North Korea. Wording in the 2004 North Korean Human Rights Act that allows it to admit defectors from the Stalinist country has not yet been put into practice due to failure to confirm identities and objections from countries where the refugees were staying. Prominent  activists for human rights in the North – Suzanne Scholte, Jae Ku, and...

Categories Activism/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Diplomacy/Human Rights/North Korea/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Law/Uncategorized/Washington Views
February 16, 2006

Defector: NK Cheerleaders Sent to Gulag

Who recalls the days when South Korea’s faith in reunification bordered on an obession – a religion, perhaps?  Nothing was more telling of the North Korean regime’s success at self-popularization in the South than the public swooning over a  squad of North Korean cheerleaders,  despite all the procrustean, regimented eeriness surrounding them.  Let’s look back at that time: This bustling South Korean port bid an emotional farewell Tuesday to a North Korean cheering squad whose presence at the Asian Games,...

Categories Appeasement/Defectors/Human Rights/Inside NK/Korean Politics/Korean Society/North Korea
February 15, 2006

Stranger Than Fiction: The Pyongyang Charm School

Everyone is ashamed of something in his past.  High on my own list is the time my brother persuaded me to read “The Charm School,” a Nelson Demille spy novel.  The plot premise was that  Moscow took custody American MIA’s from North Viet Nam to create a “charm school,” an exact replica of an  American  neighborhood, complete with American residents.  The idea was to immerse Soviet sleeper agents into their next work assignments. Unlike some other aspects of life in...

Categories Abductions/Activism/Appeasement/Asia/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Japan/Japan & Korea/North Korea/Southeast Asia/WTF?
January 27, 2006

If You Know What’s Good for You . . .

In one of the most disturbing stories of the year, we see the reprehensible authoritarian depths to which the South Korean government will stoop to protect its political power and money-making ventures from the truth that must be kept inside the North Korean defectors who know it. . . . 南北 비판한 탈북자 19% “말조심 협박 받아” Nineteen Percent of North Korean Escapees Who Criticize Governments of South or North Korea Report Being Censored with Threats [The article uses the...

Categories Censorship/Defectors/Democracy/Refugees