Category: Humanitarian Aid and Relief

UN panel on North Korea stands by rights abuses report

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The head of the UN commission that produced a damning report on North Korean rights abuses has dismissed Pyongyang’s claim that doubts about the credibility of a prominent witness made the panel’s findings “invalid”.

“The partial retraction of Shin Dong-hyuk of the testimony he gave to the Commission of Inquiry on North Korea is not significant for the report, conclusions or recommendations of the commission,” said retired Australian judge Michael Kirby.

Mr Shin, a well-known defector and Pyongyang critic, admitted this week that elements of his best-selling gulag survivor book Escape from Camp 14 were inaccurate, although he stressed that the crucial details of his suffering and torture still stood.

For his part, Mr Kirby noted that Mr Shin was only one of 300 witnesses interviewed by his commission, whose overall findings were based on a mass of “overwhelming” corroborative evidence.

The commission’s conclusion that North Korea was committing human rights violations “without parallel in the contemporary world” was the basis of a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly last month. It urged the Security Council to consider referring Pyongyang to the International Criminal Court.

For activists within the North Korean defector community, Mr Shin’s admissions of inaccuracies in his survivor story are a genuine blow, given his high profile.

In his statement, Mr Kirby was protective of the 32-year-old defector. “Mr Shin bears, on his body, the evidence of torture and suffering. At this stage he needs help and support, not hounding,” he said.

[AFP]

North Korean defectors drop leaflets and “Interview” posters into North Korea

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In the past, Pyongyang has called the North Korean defectors who organize covert balloon launches “human scum.” For good measure, the North Korean military promises to “physically eliminate” anyone who dares to send any material into the hands of its citizens, thereby breaking its information monopoly.

The threats did not dissuade a hearty band of North Korean defectors, their South Korean allies, Silicon Valley technologists, and a global team of pro-democracy activists, who braved sub-zero temperatures late Monday night to send word about Sony’s controversial movie The Interview into one of the world’s darkest corners.

The instigator for this adventure was Park Sang Hak, a man targeted as “Enemy Zero” by the North for his anti-regime activities. The son of a former high-ranking official who himself defected in 1999, Park followed his father into exile, crossing the Yalu River into China with his mother, brother, and sister.

Over the past decade, Park and his Fighters for a Free North Korea have sent dozens of balloons to the North, releasing 60-80 million leaflets into the sky, with varying rates of success. Yet Park’s activism has earned the ire of Pyongyang, which in 2011 dispatched a double agent to the South to kill him with a poison-tipped pen.

This week’s launch was especially prominent, however, in light of the recent computer hack of Sony Pictures. Park enlisted the help of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, which launched a “Hack Them Back” campaign aimed at raising funds to send 100,000 copies of The Interview on DVD and USB into the North. Though the group did not send copies of the film on this launch, it plans to do so “on a rolling basis” over the next few months. A 2010 survey of North Korean refugees found that 48 percent had viewed DVDs, a 28 percent increase from just two years prior.

[The Daily Beast]

North Korean prison camp survivor admits inaccuracies

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Shin Dong-hyuk’s horrific descriptions of his time in a North Korean prison camp became a best-selling book translated into 27 languages, made him a key witness before the United Nations and grabbed headlines around the world.

Now the publisher of the book and its author say has revealed that parts of the story he told weren’t true. Blaine Harden, author of the book “Escape from Camp 14,” said in a statement on his website over the weekend that Shin had changed “key parts of his story.”

“On Friday, Jan. 16, I learned that Shin Dong-hyuk, the North Korean prison camp survivor who is the subject of ‘Escape from Camp 14,’ had told friends an account of his life that differed substantially from my book,” Harden said. “I contacted Shin, pressing him to detail the changes and explain why he had misled me.”

Shin had previously said that he had lived his entire life in Camp 14 before escaping in 2005. He now says he escaped from Camp 18 twice before — in 1999 and 2001, wrote Harden in his statement.

Shin now says he was 20 years old when he was tortured as a punishment for escaping, wrote Harden. His original account indicated that he was tortured when he was 13.

Shin had described in the book that his finger was chopped off by an angry guard after he dropped a sewing machine in Camp 14. Now, Shin told Harden that his finger was mangled as a guard pulled out his fingernails as punishment for escaping.

“When I agreed to share my experience for the book, I found it was too painful to think about some of the things that happened,” Shin told Harden.

Human rights activists argue that changes in Shin’s account do not ultimately affect his testimony, saying they still believe he was tortured and that his story highlights the horror of prison camps.

[CNN]

North Korean defector: Hunger is humiliation and hopelessness

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As a boy, Joseph Kim could only watch helplessly, he says, as he watched his father “wither and die” in the isolated country’s devastating famine in the 1990s, which led to the tragic disintegration of his once loving family.

Kim was 12 when his father died, and his mother and sister left for China to try to find food.

When his mom returned she was alone, having sold his sister to a man in the belief that she may have a better life, according to Kim’s account.

Kim, who now studies in New York, after himself escaping to China in 2006, urged his audience not to judge his mom harshly — as he still tries to track down his sister. “So many North Korean mothers are forced to make these kind of heartbreaking decisions.”

“This isn’t just my story, but the story of millions of North Korean people,” said 24-year-old Kim. Once orphaned, he said, he would wander the streets rummaging through trash cans. “Hunger is humiliation, hunger is hopelessness,” said Kim.

[AFP]

Activists to drop ‘Interview’ DVDs into North Korea

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Whether or not North Korea is behind the Sony hack, Kim Jong Un better brace himself because “The Interview”, a comedy that has the CIA recruiting a couple of hapless American journalists for a mission to kill Kim Jong Un, is headed to his country. Human rights activists are planning to airlift DVDs into the country via hydrogen balloons.

Fighters for a Free North Korea, run by Park Sang Hak, a former government propagandist who escaped to South Korea, has for years used balloons to get transistor radios, DVDs and other items into North Korea—not to entertain the deprived masses, but to introduce them to the outside world.  Over the past two years, the Human Rights Foundation in New York, created by Thor Halvorssen, has been helping bankroll the balloon drops, with the next one set for January.

The balloons are launched from South Korea and they fly two miles high so that they cannot be shot down. Each is affixed with a small, acid-based timer that breaks open plastic bags and drops packages over the countryside.

Statistics vary, but by some accounts 74 percent of North Koreans have access to a TV and 46 percent to a DVD player, neither of which are illegal assuming only preapproved TV shows and movies are played on them, which increasingly is not the case.

The Kim regime will especially be on the lookout for copies of The Interview, a comedy about a mission to kill Kim Jong Un. “In a totalitarian country the state endeavors to control all citizens, and so every activity that is not government-sponsored is a subversive act,” says Halvorssen. “Watching a film is a crime for which you can be executed. And comedies are hands down the most effective of counterrevolutionary devices.”

[Hollywood Reporter]

North Korea broadcasts U.S. citizen’s anti-American rant

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James Clapper just can’t catch a break. No sooner does the Director of National Intelligence help retrieve two Americans from the clutches of repressive North Korea, then another one goes and gets himself ensnared.

“I would like to reveal some facts about America’s imperialistic influence and dominance, as well as much of its corrupt and threatening practices through which it has proven itself to have little to no regard for human rights or serving the greater good.”

That was Arturo Pierre Martinez, a 29-year-old El Paso, Texas, resident, giving a press conference to North Korea’s state-run media during which he heavily criticized the United States’ human rights record.

Martinez told the cameras he entered the country illegally in November from China by crossing the Yalu River. During his speech, he thanked the government for pardoning his crimes, indicating he won’t be charged for illegal entry.

His condemnation of the U.S. touched on familiar controversies like the war in Iraq, economic disparity and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. The New York Times notes he also “warned of ‘extremely dangerous and subversive technologies’ related to U.F.O.s,” which inexplicably hasn’t made the headlines.

CNN spoke to Martinez’s mother, who said her son has bipolar disorder and left for North Korea after being released from a California psychiatric ward. “He is very smart and he got the court to let him out, and instead of coming home to us he bought a ticket and left for China.”

It’s not clear if Martinez is free to leave the country, but he says he plans to seek asylum in Venezuela.

North Korea has a history of detaining U.S. citizens and coercing anti-American confessions from them, but it’s not clear if Martinez was speaking under duress or whether he’s free to leave the country.

“Very valuable for them to have an American citizen saying the things he’s saying, because now they can broadcast that to their own people and to the rest of the world to make their case against the United States,” a CNN report noted.

[WFTV]

Defector speaks of North Korea horrors

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When Yeon-Mi Park was 9 years old, she and everyone in her North Korean village were forced to watch in horror the execution of a woman for the crime of watching illegal DVDs, she says. The victim was the mother of one of her friends.

Park was born in Hyesan, the daughter of a government official, whose job provided the family with relative stability and protection. Then came the famine, and to survive her father set up a small illegal trading business smuggling goods into China, says Park.

“In 2004 my whole world came crashing down. My father, my hero, got arrested for his illegal trading business.” He was sent to a hard-labor camp, and the family was marked. “We had no real future anymore.”

So, Park said, she and her mother decided to sneak over the border into China, where a trader spotted them. In exchange for not giving them away, he demanded sex with Park, then just 13. “My mom offered to be raped in order to protect me,” she said simply.

Later, after her father had rejoined them in China but died of lung cancer, Park and her mother met up with a group heading to Mongolia.

“We walked and crawled across the Gobi desert, evading Chinese police, kidnappers and wild animals. We followed the compass, but it broke, so we followed the stars to freedom . . . we wanted to live as human beings,” she said.

[AFP]

North Korean defector: I could not trust anyone

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A North Korean defector has spoken out about how he escaped from the world’s most secretive state with his infant son strapped to his back and a cyanide pill in his mouth. Choi Joong-Ha left North Korea with his wife Yun-Ah-Jung and one-year-old son Joon Choi in 2004. He had been conditioned into such a state of paranoia that he did not tell his wife about the escape.

Joong-Ha told his wife they were going to visit his brother who lived near the Chinese border. When they reached the Tumen River that separates the two countries he revealed the real reason they had come. “My wife was not pleased and she didn’t want to go. If the authority catches you trying to escape, you will be shot or sent to a camp.”

For 12 years Joong-Ha had been in the North Korean army and would, therefore, have been subjected to the most severe punishment if he had been caught trying to leave. Because of this he waded across the river with his son strapped to his back and a cyanide pill in his mouth. “I would have been arrested, tortured and put in a camp or shot there and then. If the authorities saw us trying to cross it would be better to die in the river.”

The trip across the river took a day and when Joong-Ha and his family got into China they had to strip off their clothes and dispose of anything that might identify them as North Korean. He said: “Just because we had got to China it didn’t mean we were safe. Every day we were fearful of being caught and being deported.

“We were lucky that my wife had family near the border and she and my son could stay with them. They helped us a lot.”

After four years working as a labourer, Joong-Ha managed to save enough money to pay a broker to take him and his family to the UK.

[Full story]

Satellite monitoring North Korean political prisons

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The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) and Longmont, Colorado commercial imagery intelligence company AllSource Analysis (ASA) announced a strategic partnership to use satellite imaging and analysis to monitor and report on North Korea’s notorious political prison system.

“Up to 120,000 citizens are being held without due process in horrific, inhumane conditions for political reasons, and an estimated half-million people have died in these camps,” HRNK Executive Director Greg Scarlatoiu said from the group’s Washington, D.C., headquarters. “The collaboration with ASA will allow us to monitor, review and report on North Korea’s vast system of unlawful imprisonment. Our collaboration will employ technology used for the first time to address such an enormous human tragedy.”

The new collaboration will focus on data collection using time-lapse tracking of current and historical images, combined with on-the-ground surveillance and testimonials from former prisoners, guards and other human sources to track developments and bring as much transparency as possible to the situation.

Having this application of satellite imagery, collection and analysis represents a game-changing approach to international humanitarian efforts in North Korea and other hot spots around the world.

Most satellite imaging analysis of North Korea has focused on weapons and military infrastructure,” said AllSource Chief Analytics Officer Joe Bermudez, an internationally recognized expert on North Korea. “We’re honored to provide the technology to take humanitarian monitoring and analysis to a new level.”

[Longmont Times-Call]

UN Security Council members push to put North Korea rights on agenda

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A U.N. Commission of Inquiry report in February detailed abuses in North Korea that it said were comparable to Nazi-era atrocities, and a U.N. committee last month urged the Security Council to consider referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court (ICC) alleging crimes against humanity.

China, likely supported by Russia, would probably veto any referral to the international court based in The Hague, diplomats say, but it cannot block having the rights situation added to the council agenda.

Ten of the Security Council’s 15 members – Australia, Chile, France, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, South Korea, Rwanda, Britain and the United States – signed a letter drafted by Australia asking for the council to be briefed by U.N. officials on the human rights situation in North Korea.

“We are particularly concerned by the scale and gravity of human rights violations detailed in the comprehensive report” by the Commission of Inquiry, said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

Majority support is needed to add a new item to the U.N. Security Council agenda and such a move cannot be blocked by any of the five veto-wielding powers – the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China, diplomats said.

Once an issue is on the agenda of the U.N. Security Council it can be discussed by the body at any time.

[Reuters]