Sunday, April 29, 2007

North Korea Freedom Week Concludes

A great quote from Suzanne Scholte at The North Korea Freedom Coalition:
"Kim Jong-il's strategy is to keep the world's attention focused on his nuclear weapons. Our strategy is to focus the attention on the real issue: human rights and the fact that over 3 million people have already been killed by his dictatorship, making his regime the most brutal in the world today."

North Korea Freedom Week, sponsored by The North Korea Freedom Coalition, ends today April 29. Among eyewitnesses who arrived in Washington, D.C. to present evidence to Congress and the administration of the atrocities being committed in North Korea and China were Chiba Yomiko and Choi Young Hun.

Chiba Yomiko is the only known survivor of the Yantai Boat incident of 2003, when over 86 North Korean refugees attempted to reach freedom by boat. A humanitarian worker involved with the rescue attempt, Choi Young Hun, spent nearly 4 years in a Chinese prison for trying to help therefugees.

Other witnesses at events during the week included political prisoncamp survivors, torture victims, refugees who were repatriated from China, and family members of citizens abducted by the Kim Jong-il regime.

North Korea Freedom Week also included: the North Korea Genocide Exhibit, panels on the economic benefits of regime collapse and on the persecution of Christians, a Capitol Hill Forum, a prayer vigil, and a worldwide demonstration at Chinese embassies and consular offices around the world to protest China's violent treatment of North Korean Refugees.

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