Category: Humanitarian Aid and Relief

Fate of Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim remains unknown

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North Korea paraded three foreign detainees before international media again this week, in what has become a common tactic for dealing with outsiders accused of crimes. While their fate remains uncertain, they are at least accounted for, unlike Hyeon Soo Lim, a Canadian pastor who disappeared in the country in January.

Conspicuous by his absence in the latest television appearances, Lim has not been heard from since entering the country on what his church says was a routine humanitarian mission. Lim had reportedly visited the country on humanitarian work more than 100 times prior to his latest trip. North Korea only confirmed his detention in March, weeks after his disappearance.

Since then, there has been no update whatsoever on his situation, according to Lisa Pak, a spokeswoman for Lim’s Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Mississauga, Ontario, while his case has dropped off the media radar.

“We haven’t received any official confirmation about his health and current conditions of confinement,” she told The Diplomat, adding that she had hoped the CNN interviews might reveal new information. Pak said that even the reason for his detention and his location remain unknown. After almost six months of effective silence, Lim’s church and family are increasingly fearful for his welfare, according to Pak.

“For the family and the church, of course the longer it goes on the more concerned we are,” she said. “We just want him back, that’s the bottom line.

[The Diplomat]

The cost of doing business with North Korea

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There are differences between the United States and South Korea over their approach to North Korea. While no danger of a rift between the United States and South Korea exists yet, there’s a saying in Korean that perfectly sums up their situation: same bed, different dreams.

Korean President Park Geun-hye, having taken a hard line against Kim Jong Un when she assumed power two years ago, has noticeably relaxed her stance on North Korea. That perhaps reflects her domestic political realities, analysts say, pointing out that she’s entered the third year of her five-year term. With few successes to point to so far, they say, she could do with a boost from a summit with North Korea, which generally has the effect of lessening fears of the North.

Certainly, North Korea doesn’t do anything for free. To secure the first summit between the two Koreas, in 2000, Kim Dae-jung’s administration paid $500 million to the North, and the price has apparently risen exponentially over the years. In an 800-page memoir, Park’s predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, writes that North Korea demanded an “absurd” $10 billion and almost a million metric tons in food aid in 2009 during discussions about a potential summit (which never happened).

[Washington Post]

More on the three South Koreans detained in North Korea

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A South Korean student, who moved to the United States with his family in 2001, now held in North Korea for an illegal entry on April 22 has told CNN in an interview from Pyongyang that he wanted to be arrested.

Joo Won-Moon, 21, who attends New York University and has permanent U.S. residency, said he had hoped to create an “event” that could improve relations between North and South Korea. It was unclear whether he was speaking freely or had been told by North Korean authorities what to say.

“I wanted to be arrested,” Joo told a CNN reporter, looking relaxed and even smiling as he walked into a conference room at Pyongyang’s Koryo Hotel for the interview. “I thought that by my entrance to the DPRK (North Korea), illegally I acknowledge, I thought that some great event could happen and hopefully that event could have a good effect on the relations between the North and (South Korea),” Joo said, without elaborating on the event.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles relations with the North, said Monday it was “extremely regrettable” the North had detained Joo and called for his immediate repatriation.

CNN also interviewed on Sunday two other South Koreans being held in the North on espionage charges. Both Kim Kuk-Gi, a Christian missionary, and Choe Chun-Gil, a businessman, admitted spying for Seoul in the interviews in Pyongyang in the presence of North Korean minders. The two claimed they had not been coerced or coached on what to say. CNN noted that their accounts were “strikingly similar”.

Foreigners arrested in North Korea have previously admitted wrongdoing on camera or in writing, only to retract their statements following their return home.

[Agence France Presse]

North Korea arrests student from US for illegal entry

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North Korea said it has arrested a South Korean student of New York University for illegally entering the country from China last month.

Won Moon Joo, who North Korea says has permanent residency in the U.S. and lives in New Jersey, was arrested on April 22 after crossing the Amnok River from the Chinese border town of Dandong, the official Korean Central News Agency reported Saturday.

The 21-year-old man is being questioned by state authorities and has admitted that his actions were in violation of North Korean law, the agency said.

In New York, a spokesman for New York University, John Beckman, confirmed that Joo was a junior at NYU’s Stern School of Business, but that he was not taking classes this semester and the university was unaware of his travels.

North Korea has occasionally detained South Koreans, Americans and other foreigners, often on accusations of spying.

In March, North Korea announced that it had detained two South Korean citizens over alleged espionage. It has been holding another South Korean man since late 2013 on suspicion of spying and allegedly trying to set up underground churches in the North. He was sentenced last year to life in prison with hard labor.

[Associated Press]

North Korean diplomats storm out of UN after spat with defectors

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North Korean diplomats stormed out of a U.S.-organized event on the country’s human rights at the United Nations Thursday after they insisted on reading a statement of protest, amid shouts from defectors.

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, tried to quiet the diplomats at the event that featured more than 20 North Korean defectors. Power called the country’s statements “totally self-discrediting.”

The North Korean diplomats did not comment as they stormed out of the chamber following Ri Song Choi’s statement in protest of the event, even as North Korean defectors stood and shouted in their faces. North Korea has previously referred to defectors who cooperated with the inquiry as “human scum.”

Defectors stood up and shouted in Korean as Power and others called for calm and a U.N. security team assembled. An observer who speaks Korean said the shouts included “Shut up!” ”Free North Korea!” ”Down with Kim Jong Un!” and “Even animals know to wait their turn.”

A North Korean diplomat read a statement that referred to “ungrounded allegations” and “hostile policy” toward his country. As soon as the North Korean diplomat stopped his speech and the next defector stepped up, the North Korean diplomats walked out.

“They’re so rude,” Jay Jo, a North Korean defector, said later, adding that she wished that the diplomats had stayed so she could have spoken with them. The U.S. said North Korea had been informed before the event that it would have a chance to speak.

The brief chaos came minutes after U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic told the audience that North Korea had shown “new signs of engagement” on human rights issues in recent months.

But after the uproar, South Korean Ambassador Oh Joon told the crowd that “we thought there was a glimmer of hope … but the delegation of the DPRK today disappointed us. I think it’s a pity.” He was referring to the country’s official name, the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

As the event came to a close, Power said the “true weapons of mass destruction” in North Korea was the tyranny of its government against its citizens. Power also called on countries in the region, particularly China, to stop sending North Koreans seeking asylum back into the country, which was one of the inquiry’s concerns.

[The Associated Press]

North Korean defectors say US should do more

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A group of North Korean defectors converged Monday to call on the Obama administration to do more to help them topple dictator Kim Jong-un’s oppressive regime.

Scholte introduced some two dozen defectors at a National Press Club event to kick off the 12th annual North Korea Freedom Week. Their efforts to get information in and out of North Korea—through radio broadcasts, balloon drops, and other means—have led the country into the information age, ignited capitalism that is curbing starvation, and helped some 26,000 persons escape, Scholte said.

The defectors include a variety of organization leaders, prison camp survivors, and eyewitnesses to human trafficking, drug smuggling, propaganda dissemination, and illegal weapons trading. They will participate in various events throughout the week, including providing testimony to Congress on Wednesday, and at the United Nations in New York on Thursday. Twice this week the defectors will gather for events outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington, which has refused to treat North Koreans as refugees.

Scholte said defectors have proven highly effective at influencing the regime’s activities, but they don’t have the resources they need to do their jobs. The State Department has ended North Korea programs or severely cut funding over the last five years.

Despite that, he said, defectors refuse to quit: “The North Korean regime continues to threaten the people in this room, but they will not be intimidated.”

[WNG.org]

10 months of North Korean torture and then transferred to prison camp

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Jung Gwang Il is sitting in a comfortable hotel room in Seoul, South Korea, recalling the hell he endured when he still lived in North Korea.

He describes something that resembles waterboarding and being shocked repeatedly with live wires. Worse, he says, was “pigeon torture,” where his hands were bound behind his back and fastened to a wall at a height that made squatting or standing impossible. He was forced to lean forward, twisting in agony for days, his chest puffed like a pigeon’s breast. “It was so awful because they could just leave me there for a week, and I’d be tortured without them having to do anything,” he says. “That’s how evil they are.”

Jung ended 10 months of torture by confessing to spying — a crime he hadn’t committed — and was sent to a prison camp where he slept in barracks with 600 other men. The slave labor and lack of food took a toll: He arrived weighing 167 pounds and left three years later at 79 pounds, his teeth bashed into stubs.

Now a defector living in South Korea — with a new set of teeth — Jung, 51, is determined to inflict maximum damage on the regime of supreme leader Kim Jong Un to the north. His primary weapon is not military arms but rather the Western media he smuggles into his former country, designed to embarrass the regime and expose the lies told by its propagandists and believed by its subjects. Educational material and entertainment both are popular within North Korea’s black market, but the latter is more effective because it is more difficult to demonize as propaganda.

[Hollywood Reporter]

Christian missionaries accused of human trafficking by North Korea

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North Korea has accused Christian missionaries of human trafficking, according to the Christian Post.

“There are in the northeastern area of China so-called churches and priests exclusively engaged in hostile acts against the DPRK,” said So Se Pyong, North Korea’s ambassador to the U.N. “They indoctrinate the illegal border crossers with anti-DPRK ideology and send them back to the DPRK with assignments of subversion, destruction, human trafficking and even terrorist acts.”

Pyong’s remarks come on the heels of an official report released by Kim Jong Un’s government that called the U.S. a “living hell” where rights are ruthlessly violated.

“Such poor human right (sic) records in the U.S. are an inevitable product of the ruling quarters’ policy against humanity … Its chief executive, Obama, indulges himself in luxury almost every day, squandering hundred millions of dollars on his foreign trip in disregard of his people’s wretched life.”

North Korea is considered the worst persecutor of Christians by numerous human rights watchdog groups, notably Open Doors. “Forced to meet only in secret, they dare not share their faith even with their families, for fear of imprisonment in a labor camp. Anyone discovered engaging in secret religious activity may be subject to arrest, disappearance, torture, even public execution.”

[Worthy News]

US Court awards $330 Million to family of slain missionary in landmark judgment against North Korea

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A U.S. court has awarded $330 million to Shurat HaDin, on behalf of the U.S.-based family of Rev. Kim Dong-Shik, a Christian missionary and activist who was abducted by North Korean agents inside China and later killed in North Korea, the Christian Post reported.

“The United States District Court for the District of Columbia awarded the family $330 million — which includes $15 million dollars each to Kim’s son and brother, as well as $300 million in punitive damages — against the government of North Korea.

” ‘This is an important human rights decision that will be utilized in all political abduction cases going forward,’ Nitsana Darshan-Leitner the group’s director said.”

Activist Park Sang-hak delays launch of ‘The Interview’ into North Korea

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South Korean activists have decided that the time is not yet right to attempt to fly balloons into North Korea carrying copies of “The Interview,” a comedy that depicts an assassination attempt on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Fighters for a Free North Korea, the group planning the airlift, told Voice of America on Monday that they would postpone, by at least a few days, Thursday’s planned launch of the balloons.

In a telephone interview last week with the Los Angeles Times, group leader Park Sang-hak said he wanted North Koreans to watch “The Interview” so they could see the country’s rulers, who are glorified in state-controlled films and television, in a different way. Though he believes “The Interview” is a useful contradiction of North Korean state propaganda, Park says the film wasn’t to his taste, with jokes he found to be somewhat crude.

Park fled the North in 1999 and now lives in South Korea, where he devotes his time to sending information to North Korea using USB sticks, DVDs and pamphlets. He describes his work as a campaign to undermine the Pyongyang government’s tight control on information.

Park is regularly the target of vitriol from North Korea’s official propaganda organs, which have called him “human scum” and threatened to “physically eliminate” him.

Park’s efforts have also made him unpopular among some South Koreans. In October, North Korea used machine guns to fire on some balloons his group launched. Shells landed on the South Korean side of the border, but no injuries or casualties were reported. South Korea residents of the area have held protests when the launches take place, arguing that the balloons pose a threat to their community’s safety.

[LA Times]