Category: North Korean refugee

The long route from North Korea to South Korea

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Two days back, a combined force of Thai Navy, police and local Task force came across a group of 15 North Korean refugees during a routine patrol in northern Thailand, as the North Koreans were walking from a Mekong river bank.

North Koreans typically use the border area in Chiang Rai as a base for entering Thailand. More than 5,000 North Koreans have been arrested in Chiang Rai over the past five years and charged with illegal entry.

north korean defector route

These refugees escape North Korea and enter China where they may stay for a week to 6 months while they gather sufficient funds from various help organizations and then get onto the waiting list. It’s then about a ten day trip down through China and Laos. Then a short overnight 5 hour minivan ride through Laos and then smuggled across the Mekong and into Chiang Khong, where they cross the river.

If they are caught in either China of Laos they are deported back to North Korea. But once the North Koreans make it across the river they are usually eventually transported to the South Korean Embassy in Bangkok. Once into the South Korean Embassy in Bangkok, they may ultimately be provided air transportation to Seoul.

Reasons why North Korea is not the worst place on earth to be a Christian

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North Korea has been described as “the worst place on earth to be a Christian.” The leader of one ministry working with the North Korean Underground Church points out that is not how the Christians of North Korea themselves feel, as well as offering his own perspective.

The Rev. Eric Foley, CEO of Seoul USA, says “Our reckoning that North Korea is the worst place to be a Christian says more about our own understanding of Christianity than it does about North Korea.” Adds Foley, “North Korean underground Christians are among the least likely group to defect since they feel their existence in North Korea has divine purpose.”

Foley offers his list of “10 Reasons North Korea is not the Worst Place to be a Christian”, amongst them:

  1. If you are a Christian in a country where no Christians are suffering for Jesus you probably ought to be more concerned — than if you are a Christian in a country where nearly every Christian is suffering for Jesus.
  2. Jesus said, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you…For your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5: 11–12).
  3. We Western Christians sometimes confuse God with Mammon. North Korean Christians daily see the difference clearly.

 

Missionary activity in North Korea

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Missionaries have sought to evangelize in North Korea, as the totalitarian country forbids independent religious activities. Although North Korea contains a number of state-controlled churches, they are considered for show to international audiences, according to a report by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea.

Religion, especially Christianity, is viewed as a political threat because the state does not condone any belief system other than its official state ideology, according to the report.

Witnesses claim that underground churches function inside North Korea, according to the U.N. report. Also, missionaries and underground churches have secretly set up in China near the border to aid defectors.

North Korea is currently holding Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American, who was arrested in November 2012. Bae was sentenced in May 2013, accused of trying to topple the North Korean government and bringing religious activities into the country. He has remained in North Korean custody despite efforts by the U.S. and his family.

More recently, North Korea’s Supreme Court sentenced a South Korean man to life of hard labor for committing “hostile acts” against the country, according to its state-run news agency, KCNA. The South Korean, identified as Kim Jong Uk, averted the death sentence because he allegedly “repented of his crimes,” which included an attempt to set up an underground church inside the country.

Kim said he had worked as a missionary for several years on the Chinese side of the border with North Korea, running a church that sought North Korean converts.

[CNN]

North Korea sentences South Korean Christian to hard labor for life

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North Korea said Saturday it has sentenced a South Korean Baptist missionary to hard labor for life for allegedly spying and trying to set up underground churches, the latest in a string of missionaries to run into trouble in the rigidly controlled North.

North Korean state media said the missionary was tried Friday and admitted to anti-North Korean religious acts and “malignantly hurting the dignity” of the country’s supreme leadership, a reference to the ruling Kim family. The rival Koreas have different English spelling styles for Korean names, so the North called the missionary Kim Jong Uk, but Seoul has previously referred to him as Kim Jung Wook.

North Korea’s official news agency KCNA said in its report on the trial, “The accused admitted to all his crimes: he committed anti-DPRK religious acts, malignantly hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK overseas and tried to infiltrate into Pyongyang … for the purpose of setting up an underground church and gathering information about the internal affairs of the DPRK while luring its inhabitants into South Korea and spying on the DPRK.”

Kim had been based largely in Dandong, in China, since 2007, from where he helped North Korean defectors get to South Korea via Thailand, Laos and other countries. Kim was born in 1964, Joo said, making him 49 or 50.

In August 2012, a group of 12 North Korean women were caught by Chinese authorities while they were at Kim’s shelter and sent back to North Korea.

Christian missionaries have been drawn over the years to totalitarian North Korea, which tolerates only strictly sanctioned religious services. North Korean defectors have said that the distribution of Bibles and secret prayer services can mean banishment to a labor camp or execution.

[AP and Agence France-Presse]

The best books on North Korea

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From firsthand accounts of gulag survivors to memoirs of defectors once part of the top echelons of government, here’s a pick of the best books on the secretive kingdom from The Guardian:

1. Aquariums of Pyongyang: 10 years in the North Korean Gulag
The story of Kang Chol-hwan, a defector who spent 10 years in the notorious Yodok camp because his family was under suspicion for having lived in Japan. Billed as “part horror story, part historical document, part political tract”. Kang defected to South Korea a few years after his release, and went on to work as a journalist for Chosun Ilbo.

2. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Barbara Demick’s critically acclaimed novel follows the lives of six citizens in the north-eastern city of Chongjin through the tumultuous period after the great leader Kim Il-sung dies and is replaced by his son Kim Jong-il. Demick, the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, based the book on the accounts of of six North Korean defectors and photos and videos smuggled out of the country.

3. North Korea: State of Paranoia
A change of pace from Paul French in this analysis of the history and politics of the country. The trade review promises “a provocative and alarming account of what is a potentially explosive nuclear tripwire”. The book focuses on the economy which French, who also wrote the best-seller Midnight in Peking, argues is central to understanding the policy shifts and leadership.

4. Escape from Camp 14
This international best-seller is another harrowing testimony from the prison camps. American journalist Blaine Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk, the only known person to have been born in a gulag and escaped.

5. Dear Leader
The most recent release on this list, Dear Leader is described as “a very rare, first hand account into life in the North Korean society” told by Jang Jin-sung, a former member of the elite.

6. The Orphan Master’s son
The novel by American writer Adam Johnson tells the story of Pak Jun-do, the North Korean John-Doe, son of an orphan master, who has never met his mother. The book was widely praised earning Johnson the Pulitzer prize for fiction and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in 2013.

7. Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader
By Bradley K Martin, a 900 pages portrait of Kim II-sun and Kim Jong-iI, which Daily NK says is an “excellent, well-researched insight into the nature of the North Korean regime, the way it indoctrinates from birth, the way it controls, monitors and crushes dissent.”

8. This is Paradise! My North Korean Childhood
The story of Kang Hyok’s childhood in North Korea, co-authored by Philippe Grangereau. Kang lived through famine in the north, the hardest hit area of the country, an account of country living under a disturbing notion of “paradise”.

To move forward on North Korean human rights

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[Excerpts of a CFR piece by Roberta Cohen, a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, specializing in human rights and humanitarian issues:]

For decades, the international community has largely sidestepped its responsibility to hold North Korea to account. To be sure, the challenges are formidable. Take the most publicized recommendation  from the report by UN Commission of Inquiry(COI) on Human Rights in the DPRK—that the situation be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although a logical step, it will be difficult to implement because North Korea has not ratified the ICC’s Rome Statute; consequently the court has no jurisdiction over the case. It will require a UN Security Council referral, but China’s veto could thwart its adoption. China’s veto could also prevent targeted sanctions from being applied to those most responsible for crimes against humanity, another COI recommendation.

The report recommends tapping the entire UN system, most notably humanitarian and development organizations, so that they also address human rights concerns in their work. But here too it will be difficult to bring everyone on board. Those working on the ground may be resistant because it could interfere with their access and cooperation with the government. Yet agencies dealing with food, health, children, and refugees can hardly afford to overlook the findings in this report—state policies leading to mass starvation, discrimination in food distribution and health care, and children mistreated in camps—and then claim they’re doing their jobs of reaching the most vulnerable.

One tangible result thus far is the approval by the UN of an office in Asia to continue monitoring and documenting the human rights situation in North Korea and reinforcing the UN’s efforts to hold accountable those responsible for crimes against humanity.  If properly funded, staffed, and given a broad mandate, the office should be able to maintain the momentum created by the COI report.

A strong UN voice will be needed as well. Regrettably, COI Chair Michael Kirby’s powerful voice has begun to recede now that the COI’s work is completed, while Navi Pillay, another leading voice, will no longer be High Commissioner for Human Rights after July.

Overall, a sustained and broad-based effort will be needed by governments, international organizations, NGOs, foundations, experts, and business enterprises to make sure that human rights concerns in North Korea remain firmly rooted on the international agenda.

Walking Dead star to appear in movie of ‘Aquariums of Pyongyang’

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The Hollywood Reporter writes that Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun is teaming with Radar Pictures to adapt Kang Chol-Hwan’s autobiographical book The Aquariums of Pyongyang for the big screen.

“The movie is set in North Korea, one of the last bastions of hardline Communism. Its leaders have kept a tight grasp on the one-party regime, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for ‘re-education.’

“Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea. Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, the book is a record of one man’s triumph over unbelievable adversity to expose the truths of North Korea to the modern world.”

NGO reaction to US government grants promoting human rights for North Korea

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Nicholas Hamisevicz, a researcher at the Washington-based Korea Economic Institute, echos the sentiment that the benefits of US government grants to funds NGOs promoting human rights and democracy in North Korea were worth the risks.

“While many can have concerns … because of North Korea’s potential reaction, which could include persecution, jailing, and execution of North Korean citizens found to be connected or engaged with human rights activities, and the imprisonment of foreigners deemed to be undertaking these efforts in North Korea, I am still in favor of this call for grant applications,” Hamisevicz said.

Other observers cautioned against interpreting the grant call as any statement of US policy on North Korea. “[The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, or DRL] has specific responsibilities and is one bureau in the whole department of state, so this shouldn’t necessarily be seen as representing some sort of broader government policy,” said Sokeel Park, director of research and strategy at Liberty in North Korea (LiNK). “DRL’s remit is in their name (Democracy, Human Rights and Labor). It’s not all-encompassing, but it’s part of the puzzle,” he added, adding that the call would not be relevant for LiNK as the group does not accept government funding.

Greg Scarlatoiu, the executive director of the committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said that “over the years, State/DRL funding has been made available to organizations addressing North Korea from a broad range of angles.”

The grant call is nothing new, but indicates changing priorities at the State Department. While previous grant winners could receive funding of up to $3m a year, the ceiling of $350,000 meant that in 2014 “not many NGOs can work with this funding,” Bada Nam of the People for Successful Korean Reunification, an organization that helps North Korean defectors in China, said. “There are a lot of brilliant ideas to bring information into North Korea. Lots of NGOs are working on this but recently stopped due to financial problems.” Nam said.

The private radio station Open Radio for North Korea ended its broadcasts into North Korea earlier this year, apparently due to a grant coming to an end.

[The Guardian]

Criticism of US govt grants for North Korea ‘ignorant and insulting’

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The call for proposals by the US State Department’s Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor has attracted harsh public criticism, centering on three focal points:

1) That these types of activities (which could involve the carrying of illicit products into North Korea) mean that funding is actively encouraging violations of North Korean law.

2) That funding could be used to facilitate activities that place those who undertake them in danger.

3) That resulting projects will do little to help ordinary North Korean people.

In sum, naysayers feel that the money could end up promoting projects that are not only illegal, but also risky and ultimately quite unhelpful.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Even if one acknowledges that some illegality, danger, and even some unproductive outcomes may result, the fact is that the benefits still far outweigh the risks.

The illegality argument is misguided. It is no exaggeration to say that North Korea is the kind of endemically corrupt place where the person who does not engage in illegality of some sort is at risk of death. A vast and completely incomprehensible litany of activities is forbidden there.

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US government grants for promoting human rights in North Korea

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The call by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) offers applicants grants of up to $350,000 to promote “human rights and democratic principles in North Korea”. Proposals are sought that promote “access to information into, out of, and within North Korea,” the call says, including those involving “the production of media, including visual/video content, for DVDs, USBs, and other methods to send information into North Korea.”

But while many oppose North Korea’s long-standing information blockade and strict censorship laws, several observers told NK News that there could be serious risks for those involved in the transport or consumption of US-funded information, with provisions in the call clearly implying activities that both North Korean and Chinese authorities may view as illegal.

“[The call] is encouraging people to break their country’s laws, with no consideration of the possible consequences,” said James Hoare, a former British Charge D’affaires to Pyongyang. “I doubt whether those who devised these policies have given much thought to the likely consequences.”

As shown in the case of Kenneth Bae, the US national currently serving a 15-year sentence of hard labor in North Korea, Washington’s North Korea policy is not often helped by the arrest of American citizens attempting to share information that Pyongyang views with suspicion.

The grant call welcomes proposals “that support recommendations from the recently released report from the (United Nations) commission of inquiry on North”. While the UN commission operated on a strict “first do no harm” basis to ensure the safety of contributors, the risks involved in moving information in and out of North Korea suggest a contradiction with the State Department’s own strategy to improve human rights in North Korea.

The report, which offers the most comprehensive account of human rights violations in North Korea, explained how local authorities have been known to execute vendors found supplying external media, or tortured or imprisoned end-users found with foreign materials in their possession.

It also referenced the North Korean criminal code, which says that those found “listening to hostile broadcasting and collect[ing], keeping and distribut[ing] enemy propaganda”, would be sentenced to hard labor.”

Because the trafficking of physical information takes place along the Chinese-North Korean border, it could require the illicit movement of individuals and materials, which is likely to break both Chinese and North Korean laws.

Despite the risks involved with getting information into and out of North Korea, two human rights activists said the dangers were worth the benefits. “Brave policies, activists and strong convictions have made progress in human history… Doing nothing for fear that such grants may irritate the North Korean regime is cowardly,” said Eunkyoung Kwon, of Open Radio North Korea, an organization that has received US funding.

Bada Nam, secretary general of the People for Successful Korean Reunification, an organization that helps North Korean defectors in China, said there was a net benefit to the process of getting outside information into North Korea. “Even though it is so dangerous to deliver information inside NK, it is worth it to change the people inside,” Nam said.

“If there is no one providing information into North Korea, the NK people will not gain any access to the real world. I think they have the right to know the truth,” Nam said, adding that “the future is made by the people who take danger together”.

[The Guardian]