Category: North Korea

North Korea Freedom Coalition Upcoming Events

North Korea Freedom Coalition’s Suzanne Scholte offers the following recommendations in the continuing struggle for freedom in North Korea:

Dear Friends:

Please consider these action items this coming month for the promotion of North Korea human rights:

Write a Letter from America to North Koreans: We will be producing the fifth recording of Letters from America in mid-August and are always happy to receive letters from American citizens with messages to the North Korean people.  Please send your letters via email to skswm@aol.com, so that they can be recorded and broadcast into North Korea on Free North Korea Radio.

Support the Next Balloon Launches into North Korea: We are currently raising funds for the next balloon launches into North Korea which will include radios and North Korean currency.  If anyone is interested in financially supporting this project — we have raised 1/4 of the budget so far, please let me know and I can send more details including the budget.

Help Rescue North Korean women from being trafficked in China: 318 Partners, led by American hero and rescuer, Steve Kim is constantly rescuing refugees, especially trafficked victims, out of China and therefore is in constant need of support.  Furthermore, Civil Courage Prize winner and another American hero and rescuer, Philip Buck, is now trying to raise funds for a rescue of a family right now.  If you can help these noble efforts, please visit and consider a donation to 318 Partners: http://www.318partners.org/

Help Shut Down Funds for Kim Jong il’s Chosun Fund: Izumi Asano from Reach has gathered information about a fund based in Hong Kong http://www.chosunfund.com/pages/chosun/about.aspx that is calling for investment in the DPRK  in violation of the most recent Security Council resolution.  He is requesting individuals to contact chief executive and head of the Hong Kong government, Sir Donald Tsang (e-mail address: ceo@ceo.gov.hk), to stop the ChosunFund in Hong Kong.  Attached is information that Asano prepared and sample letter to send.

Mark Your Calendar to Participate in Events September 24: Next International Protest to Save North Korean Refugees:  The date of September 24, 2009 has been chosen as the date for the next International Protest to Save North Korean Refugees.  September 24 is the day in 1982 that China became a signatory to the 1951 Refugees Convention, the very agreement it is violating with its repatriation of North Korean refugees.  On that date around the world, people will be calling attention to China’s violation of this agreement.  It is becoming increasingly more known thanks to the testimony of the defectors and coverage by the news media of the horrors that the refugees are facing both in China and when they are repatriated to North Korea.

We are seeking country coordinators and city coordinators in the USA especially where there are PRC consulates (DC, NY, Chicago, LA, San Francisco and Houston).  We are already planning a day of activities in Washington DC and city and country coordinators can mark that day in the way they choose: demonstration, protests, prayer vigil, delivery of petitions at PRC embassies and consulates at noon.   Plus, we would ask everyone to also considering sponsoring a special screening that evening or an evening that week of Crossing, On the Border, Seoul Train or any film depicting the plight of refugees in which funds would be requested to help the rescue operations being conducted by rescuers like Steve Kim and Phillip Buck in USA, Kato Hiroshi in Japan, Tim Peters and the North Korea defector groups in South Korea, etc.

Please let me know if you would be willing to be a city or country coordinator for September 24 to focus attention on the North Korea refugees.

More on Calling or A Special Tribunal to Stop North Korea’s Atrocties:  I am pleased to include below another OPED which appeared in the Chosun Ilbo on Wednesday regarding the need for a special tribunal.

Acta Non Verba,
Suzanne Scholte

How Can We Stop Today’s Endless Atrocities Being Committed Against the Korean People?
Suzanne Scholte
Seoul Peace Prize Laureate 2008

This past week was the 50th anniversary of Captive Nation’s Week, which was first established in 1959, to recognize the nations whose people are held “captive” under communism. Communism is now responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people – and today in North Korea millions have perished just within the last decade and hundreds more will die this week in political prison camps, detentions centers, because of starvation and lack of medical care and through public executions – innocent men, women, and children.

How can the government of South Korea stop the rising death toll in North Korea?  South Korea needs to send a powerful signal to those committing crimes against the Korean people by convening a Tribunal of respected South Korean judges and legal experts to gather evidence and begin to prosecute those responsible.  Because North Koreans are citizens of the Republic of Korea under Article III of their constitution, North Koreans have standing in Korean courts.  Those committing these heinous acts on behalf of the Kim Jong-il regime must be put on notice that one day they will be held accountable and punished.  For example: the Musan detention center guard who beat and crippled Bang Mi Sun who had been sent there as punishment because she had fled to China to feed her starving children; the political prison camp guards at Camp No. 14 who tortured Shin Dong Hyok when he was just fourteen years old because he could not explain why his mother had tried to escape; and the North Korean border guards who beat to death the teenage daughter of Ko Mae Hwa and the North Korean security police who killed her father because she worked for Free North Korea Radio – all must be held accountable for their actions.

Furthermore, people like Kim Young Soon – a Yoduk survivor who lost her father, mother, son, and daughter –  may be able to have some peace in her life if she knows that her government will pursue those who destroyed her family when she was sent to Yoduk simply for knowing Kim Jong-il’s first wife.  Working with the group “Democracy Network Against the North Korean Gulag” and the survivors of these camps, the tribunal can collect the names and get sketches of the faces of the perpetrators in these camps who have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Koreans.

Now is a crucial time to send this signal because North Koreans are becoming increasingly aware of the true conditions outside their “paradise.”  Kim Jong-il’s days are numbered and he can no longer isolate and subjugate the North Korean people.  South Korea must be ready for that day of reckoning when the atrocities of this regime become known to the world.

After giving a speech recently, I was approached by a Korean American who fled his North Korean hometown of Hamhung as child with the U.S. Army in 1950 when the Chinese invaded.  His father had told him to go with the retreating U.S. Army.

This Korean American never saw his family again because the Americans never came back to North Korea as his father predicted.  Regarding South Korea, he told me bitterly: “We North Koreans would never had abandoned our South Korean brothers and sisters if the Communist had taken them over and we had been free.”

His statement reminds us that reunification will not just come with the end of communism in the North.  Convening a Tribunal is a critical step for South Korea to stem the atrocities being committed against the Korean people now, and to begin the process of reconciliation and healing that will start with reunification.

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http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/07/29/2009072901481.html

North Korea Executes Christian For Distributing Bible: Rights Group

North Korea Executes Christian For Distributing Bible: Rights Group
— “A Christian woman accused of distributing the Bible, a book banned in communist North Korea, was publicly executed last month for the crime, South Korean activists said Friday.”
— “The 33-year-old mother of three, Ri Hyon Ok, also was accused of spying for South Korea and the United States, and of organizing dissidents, a rights group said in Seoul, citing documents obtained from the North.”
— “The Investigative Commission on Crime Against Humanity report included a copy of Ri’s government-issued photo ID and said her husband, children and parents were sent to a political prison the day after her June 16 execution.”

North Korea Freedom Human Rights Activist Urges South Korean Tribunals

— “Tribunal for North Korea” by Suzanne Sholte
— “Seoul can show that it’s serious about protecting human rights”
— “There are many horrible stories about the North Korean regime’s disregard for human rights, but I recently heard one that’s hard to forget: On a recent trip to Seoul, a North Korean mother told me she and her 14-year-old daughter fled North Korea but were separated in China. The mother waited in China to reunite with her daughter only to discover that Chinese security agents had forced the girl back to North Korea, where border guards beat her to death.”
— “It is hard to conceive of human beings who are capable of killing a 14-year-old girl simply for fleeing with her mother in search of a better life. Yet these same monsters are continuing this brutality in detention centers and political prison camps all over North Korea. What can a civilized society do to stop the atrocities being committed right now against the North Korean people by the Kim Jong Il regime?”
— “South Korea has a tool it can use: It should establish and convene a tribunal of South Korean judges and legal experts to collect evidence and take defectors’ testimonies with the hope that, eventually, those guilty of these heinous crimes face prosecution. Under the Constitution of the Republic of Korea, North Koreans are citizens of South Korea and thus have standing in South Korean courts. There are a number of reasons why this action is critically important.”

July 11 Lincoln Memorial Public Awareness Event – Orange Ribbon Campaign Kickoff for Equality And Liberty

On July 11, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) members held a public awareness event at the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool steps to promote equality and liberty.  This public awareness event was the official launching of our Orange Ribbon campaign for equality and liberty.

Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) Orange Ribbon Campaign for Equality And Liberty
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) Orange Ribbon Campaign for Equality And Liberty
Orange Ribbon for Equality And Liberty
Orange Ribbon for Equality And Liberty

We addressed the issues of equality and liberty which are so critical to our human experience, including:

— in America, the urgent need for the support and passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and inviting the public to our August 26 event at the Freedom Plaza

— the recognition of the global hate crime of misogyny and the need to treat misogynist actions as hate crimes

— the 1 billion that continue to suffer under Communist oppression in Communist China with over 1,000 “forced labor camps” imprisoning 6.8 million, the Communist oppression of people in North Korea including millions starved to death and also put in “forced labor camps”, and continuing Communist oppression of people in Vietnam.  We also promoted the July 19 Million Minutes of Meditation rally for freedom in China and for the Falun Gong to be held on the National Mall

— the continuing Racial Supremacism based out of the same institutionalized hate that denies our universal human rights, with thousands members of over 900 racial supremacist hate groups in America today.  We pointed to our warning about such racial supremacism in April at our last Lincoln Memorial event, and the tragic murder at the Holocaust Memorial Museum since that time by white supremacist Neo-Nazi Von Brunn.  We pointed to those who praised Von Brunn as “an intelligent man” right after the attack, and how hate continues to get a platform in America.   We also invited the public to join our public awareness event challenging racial supremacism on August 28, the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial;  our August 28 public event challenging racial supremacism will be held at the Robert E. Lee Memorial.

— the challenge of religious extremists using “religious arguments” as a disguise for those whose institutionalized hate leads to violence against women, homosexuals, religious minorities around the world on a regular basis – and why such hate against our fellow human beings must never be legitimized or rationalized as anything other than hate.

Responsible for Equality And Liberty continues to offer a solution to such injustice, inequality, and institutionalized hate – and we believe that the answer is LOVE.

We believe that Love Wins and will ultimately prevail over all forms of institutionalized hate and injustice.

We call on our fellow human beings to be Responsible for Equality And Liberty and join our Orange Ribbon campaign to promote public awareness of the urgent need to continue to defend our universal human rights, through our love for our fellow human beings.

Responsible for Equality And Liberty's Jeffrey Imm Promotes Equality And Liberty Through Love as the Answer to Institutionalized Hate
Responsible for Equality And Liberty’s Jeffrey Imm Promotes Equality And Liberty Through Love as the Answer to Institutionalized Hate
Responsible for Equality And Liberty's Jeffrey Imm Addresses the Need for the Equal Rights Amendment (E.R.A.) at the Lincoln Memorial
Responsible for Equality And Liberty’s Jeffrey Imm Addresses the Need for the Equal Rights Amendment (E.R.A.) at the Lincoln Memorial
Orange Ribbon for Universal Human Rights - Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)
Orange Ribbon for Universal Human Rights – Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)