Movie "Crossing" about North Korean human rights

Coming soon, the movie "Crossing" -- North Koreans' daily life, poverty and starvation, concentration camps there and the dangerous escape through China, including storming western embassies in Beijing.

Based on the true story of a 10-year-old boy who died in the Mongolian desert on his way to freedom.

Foreign journalists' preview, with English subtitles, scheduled for Friday, May 30, 2 pm, Megabox, Coex, Seoul.

For the trailer and info

Christopher Hill Credited With U.S. Shift on North Korea

Although only a mid-level foreign service official, chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill "has become the public face of an extraordinary 180-degree policy shift on North Korea," the Washington Post reported on Monday. “The nuclear agreement that Hill has tirelessly pursued over the past three years has emerged as Bush's best hope for a lasting foreign policy success."

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last year hailed him as a "diplomat par excellence".

"One of the biggest guessing games in diplomatic circles today is how long Hill can keep up his balancing act of pleasing his bosses, negotiating with North Korea and fending off conservatives eager to see him fail," the Post wrote.

[Chosun Ilbo]

Aid groups say North Korea is heading for major famine

North Korea’s food crisis is more severe than previously estimated due to last year’s poor harvest, Good Friends, a human rights group focused on North Korea, said yesterday.

The group said the current situation is a prelude to a recurrence of the massive famine of the 1990s. During the infamous food crisis of the 1990s, the North’s population fell by between 2.5 million and 3 million, a rare North Korean government survey showed.

“If this situation continues, we will starve to death in June,” a North Korean official was quoted as saying in the activist group’s report. “We don’t have a single grain of rice, and that is our reality,” said another.

The group said the food crisis is particularly severe for factory workers and other professionals outside Pyongyang, while government officials, soldiers and residents of the capital city are given priority rations.

Meanwhile, United Press International reported yesterday that North Korea and China have boosted border patrols to stop North Koreans trying to escape poverty and hunger. U.S. aid group Helping Hands Korea also said it has received reports of “°shoot-on-sight” orders given to North Korean border guards who encounter people trying to cross the border illegally.

[JoongAng Daily]

North Koreans Flee Amid Food Shortage

North Korea and China have boosted border patrols to stop North Koreans trying to escape poverty and hunger in their homeland, a U.S. aid group said.

Helping Hands Korea said border patrols on both sides of the Tumen and Yalu Rivers are being increased to stop illegal border crossers, The Korea Times reported.

For their part, Chinese police are making more house-to-house checks along border areas to crack down on refugees hiding out in ethnic Korean households living in China, the group said.

Helping Hands Korea also claimed it has received reports of "shoot-on-sight'' orders given to North Korean border guards who encounter people trying to cross the border illegally. Additionally, snipers have been posted at border stations along the Tumen River.

North Koreans have increasingly sought to escape amid poverty and worsening food shortages, the Times said. Upcoming international aid and the U.S. promise of 500,000 tons of provisions could fill much of the gap, the agency said.

[UPI]

Washington approves aid package for North Korea

[As predicted] The U.S. Senate has earmarked $15 million in economic aid for North Korea for fiscal 2008 and approved an additional $53 million to provide 1 million tons of fuel in exchange for progress in North Korea’s denuclearization efforts.

The latest moves came after North Korea broke a months-long deadlock in its three-step denuclearization process, brightening prospects for the next round of six-party talks. Seoul officials said the next round could be held in Beijing in early June.

North Korea turned over 18,000 pages of Yongbyon nuclear records dating back to 1992 to Washington earlier this month and is poised to submit a full nuclear inventory and list of programs to China, host of the six-party talks.

Once North Korea sends that information, Washington will respond by taking the country off the U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, South Korea’s chief nuclear envoy Kim Sook said.

[JoongAng Ilbo]

Movie coming based on "The Aquariums of Pyongyang"

A defector's book about his decade-long ordeal in a North Korean prison camp is to be made into a film. A South Korean film maker said it would co-produce "The Aquariums of Pyongyang" with its US partner.

"Shooting is expected to begin in October this year with preparations for casting underway," Bae Jin-Su, a Cinema and I executive, told AFP. "We aim to put it on the screen in July next year."

Kang Chol-Hwan told Daily NK, an Internet newspaper run by defectors, that the movie would be "a significant opportunity to unveil the true nature" of North Korean prison camps.

Kang and his family were sent to a camp for political prisoners at Yodok in South Hamkyung province in 1977. He and other defectors have testified that beatings, forced labor, torture and other gross human rights abuses were rampant in the camps.

[AFP]

North Korea to destroy nuke facilities as symbolic gesture

North Korea is expected to destroy part of its nuclear installations as a symbolic gesture around the time it submits a declaration on its nuclear programs, Yonhap news agency reported Wednesday, quoting a South Korean envoy in Washington.

[Kyodo]

North Korean papers in exchange for food?

Despite the volume of papers given to Sung Kim, a US State Department expert on Korea, analysts doubt if the documents address vital US questions. Still, analysts say, the hand-over marks a concrete step forward that could open the way to further progress, driven in part by North Korea's desperation over looming threats of famine and disease.

Analysts say the country's economic problems and food shortage are approaching the widespread famine and suffering of the 1990s. The US is reportedly prepared to send North Korea 500,000 tons of foodstuffs as US technicians monitor disablement of the Yongbyon complex amid reports that the North may blow up the reactor's cooling tower as symbolic evidence that it's making good on its promise to give up the entire program.

Kim Tae Woo suggest "the situation may push the US to move forward" on getting the congressional approval needed to remove North Korea from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism and to lift economic sanctions.

Those steps are crucial as North Korea faces renewed threats of famine and disease. Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency, reminding readers of "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il's call for an "agricultural revolution," has editorialized that the need "to drastically increase grain production" and "resolve the problem of eating" is the country's "most pressing and important issue."

Conversations with North Koreans crossing the Tumen River border into China bear out the urgency of the food problem. "The situation is extremely dire," says Tim Peters, founder of Helping Hands Korea, which aids North Korean refugees. "The poor harvest and poor weather are the worst in 13 to 14 years."

Mr. Peters, reached by phone as he met North Koreans on the Chinese side of the Tumen River, gets the impression that persecution may have eased as the crisis deepens. "People are more vocal about their feelings," he says. "They seem less fearful about talking."

An influx of aid from the US and South Korea, on top of aid the North receives from China, "could be a big help," he adds, "but my question is, how far will it filter down to the little people?"

[Excerpt of an article by Donald Kirk, Christian Science Monitor]

Famine Looms in North Korea as Grain Prices Soar 250%

A growing number of critics say that skyrocketing grain prices in North Korean markets are a prelude to another potential mass starvation.

North Koreans heavily depend on grain consumption as a source of nutrition, a family of four needing at least 60 kilograms a month, or 720 kilograms a year. If the cost of fuel, side dishes, and other necessities are calculated, a family of four will need at least 400 to 500 dollars a year.

It is difficult to estimate North Korea’s national per capita income, but it is believed between 368 and 389 dollars for a family of four.

Other experts on North Korean affairs, such as Seo Jae-jin, a chief researcher at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification, and Dong Yong-seung, head of the Economic Security Team at the Samsung Economic Research Institute, said that the possibility of mass starvation in the North is slim as the North now has markets, which are run under the principle of supply and demand.

“Mass starvation occurred in mid-1990s because the markets did not have the strength to stand on their own because the government’s ability to meet the demand was paralyzed. However, the situation is different now,” said Dong.

In a press conference held in Washington, Ven. Beopryun, head of Good Friends, an aid organization for North Korean refugees, argued that the international community should immediately send food aid to the Stalinist regime as some 200,000 to 300,000 North Koreans might die of starvation in May and June.

[Excerpt from Dong-A Ilbo]

Emergency food aid for North Korea

The head of the US State Department's Korea desk and four other US officials recently crossed the line from North to South Korea at the truce village of Panmunjom at the weekend lugging 18,000 documents the North Koreans gave them on their nuclear program.

Daily logs may provide clues on how much plutonium North Korean technicians have managed to reprocess at the nuclear complex at Yongbyon or nuclear warheads. Despite the volume of papers handed over to the Americans, however, no way do analysts believe North Korea is about to give up its deepest nuclear secrets.

North Korea needs to appear cooperative while writhing in mounting economic problems that approach the years of suffering during the late 1990s. It is not clear if the US team in Pyongyang came to terms on a deal for emergency food aid, but North Koreans crossing the Tumen River border into China testify to the urgency of the food crisis.

"The situation is extremely dire right now," said Tim Peters, founder of Helping Hands Korea, providing sustenance for North Korean refugees. "People are comparing it to 1994 and 1995. The poor harvest and poor weather are the worst in 13 to 14 years." An influx of aid from the US and South Korea, on top of aid the North receives from China, "could be a big help", Peters said, "but my question is, how far will it filter down to the little people?"

[Excerpt of an article by Donald Kirk, Asia Times]

Humanitarian food crisis looms in North Korea

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that time is running out to avert looming food shortages and a potential humanitarian crisis in North Korea (DPRK) following confirmation of a critically low national harvest stemming in part from last year’s heavy August floods.

Read more

North Koreans attempting to get asylum in foreign embassies

Conditions indicate this will be another very lean year for the poor innocents of North Korea.

View a montage of news footage of North Koreans attempting to get asylum in foreign embassies in China, as well as footage from inside North Korea.

Demonstration at Chinese Consulate in Toronto

After arriving in Toronto, Canada, for a speaking engagement at a Korean-Canadian NGO eager to advance the cause of North Korean human rights, Tim Peters of Helping Hands Korea organized a demonstration in front of the Chinese Consulate. The speaking event was attended by a Senator and several MP’s who came down from Ottawa to hear the presentation on the ‘underground railroad’ and the work of Helping Hands Korea.

US to soften Pyongyang nuke demands

The US for the first time said it would ease its demands on North Korea in a bid to break a stalemate on ending Pyongyang's nuclear arms drive.

The top Asia hand at the US National Security Council, Dennis Wilder, said North Korea was not "off the hook" on fully declaring its atomic programs, but that proliferation issues would be "handled in a different manner".

The concession came as South Korean President Lee Myung-bak proposed the creation of the first liaison offices in the capitals of the two Koreas, which are technically in a state of war.

On the weapons front, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an apparent concession to Pyongyang, indicated the entire overdue declaration might not be made public. She hinted US sanctions against North Korea could be removed even before the hardline communist state's nuclear programs or proliferations activities were verified independently.

North Korea has been pushing the US to remove it from the black list of state sponsors of terrorism. Dr Rice said the document incorporating North Korea's proliferation activities could be kept private, allowing Pyongyang to save face.

Washington is eager to see the denuclearisation drive completed before President George W. Bush leaves office in January next year. The North tested a nuclear bomb in October 2006.

[The Australian]

North Korea at risk of famine

North Korea may be on the brink of another famine as a result of last year's devastating floods, the worldwide increase in food prices, and a malnourished population, the United Nations warned today.

"North Korea ... faces a dire food shortage," U.N. World Food Program spokesman Paul Risley said at a Bangkok news conference. "Because of high global food prices it will be very difficult for the government of DPRK to purchase food on global markets to make up the difference."

The Democratic Republic of North Korea is still recovering from a famine in the 1990s that is believed to have killed about a million people and left many children permanently stunted, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Nearly 40 percent of North Korea's young children remain "chronically malnourished," according to a recent survey by the WFP and UNICEF. And this year, the isolated communist country is expected to see the largest harvest deficit since 2001, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization.

The price of rice and other staple foods has doubled over the past year.

[CNN]

Bounty up 1600 percent for North Korean Defectors

China claims Tibetan protestors are being agitated by foreign religious elements, and so now is starting to suspect foreign connections behind any activities of which it disapproves.

Norbert Vollertsen tells us that LFNKR has received a report from staff in Jilin Province that any Christian church in Yanbien found to be involved with foreigners, including South Koreans, is being shut down. In addition, the punishment has been made more severe for extending help to North Korean defectors. Until recently, violators were fined, but they now face imprisonment.

The Yanbien Autonomous Korean Prefecture in Jilin Province is attempting to attract more informants to report North Korean defectors by raising the bounty by 1600 percent for each North Korean defector turned in.

LFNKR suggests that you send a letter of protest to the Chinese government. (To find the PRC embassy in your country.)

As the Beijing Olympics draw near

As the Beijing Olympics draw near, crackdowns on Chinese human-rights activists are increasing, as well as on North Korean refugees entering China. Read more

Confronting China

Tibet erupted in flames surprisingly just in time to tarnish China’s impressive 2008 Olympic preparations. Tibet can never emerge as an issue without the primary western support.

Washington is convinced that China’s economic rise is undermining its political and economic hegemony. The western rhetoric over Tibet is just a smokescreen that hides a disgustingly larger agenda that goes as far as stopping Chinese investments in African oilfields, where the Americans and the British are dazed at how the Chinese have outspent them on buying up oil concessions.

As soon as the riots erupted in Tibet, Ms. Pelosi, the first woman speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, dashed to New Delhi to meet the Dalai Lama. More nauseating was her self-righteous sermon on Tibet. “If freedom loving people throughout the world do no speak out,” she said, “we have lost all moral authority to speak on human rights anywhere in the world.” This coming from a country that stands culpable for the murder of 300,000 Iraqis in five years of brutal American occupation.

John McCain was quick to say in Paris that “mistreatment” in Tibet was an “unacceptable conduct for a world power.”

Britain’s former defense minister, Michael Portillo, a celebrated gay who bowed out after a scandal in the 1990s, openly asked western countries to blackmail China using Tibet. In a London newspaper, he came out with this headline, ‘Tibet: the West can use the Olympics as a weapon against Beijing.”

The western focus now is to push the Chinese government to make one wrong move so that Washington and other ‘allied’ governments could drag Beijing into a costly confrontation.

[Excerpt of an article by Ahmed Quraish, Global Politician]

Brussels-based NGO helps 12 North Koreans find freedom

Yesterdayday at 11.55 am (local time), two senior leaders of Human Rights Without Frontiers Int'l (HRWF Int'l) from Brussels and Paris forced their way inside the Embassy of South Korea in Vientiane, Laos, with 12 refugees from North Korea who had travelled through China before getting stranded in Laos.

Nine of them had arrived 2 months ago and three more on 26 March.

At 1.40 pm, HRWF Int'l received the news that the South Korean Embassy was processing their requests for political asylum in South Korea.

Helping Hands Korea meeting with UN Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights

Helping Hands Korea, represented by founder Tim Peters, was one of several NGO’s invited to meet in Seoul with UN Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights, Dr. Vitit Muntarbhorn.

The Special Rapporteur is preparing an important annual report on the North Korean refugee situation and solicited data from NGO’s to help him to make the report as comprehensive as possible.

Fact Sheet on North Korean Refugees

Below are excerpts of a fact sheet submitted by Tim Peters of Helping Hands Korea, to UN Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights, Dr. Vitit Muntarbhorn. The following is based on Helping Hand Korea’s experience and assessment of the North Korean refugee situations in China and surrounding countries.

China

· Estimate of roughly 300,000 to 450,000 North Korean refugees living in fear and hiding throughout China.

· As the Beijing Olympics approach, there is stronger and stronger evidence of yet another crackdown by Chinese authorities, similar to the "Strike Hard" campaigns in earlier years of this decade.Proliferation of CN_NK border surveillance cameras, heat & motion sensors.

· The Chinese leadership continue to ignore their nation's obligations as a signatory to the 1951 Convention on the Protection of Refugees by its policy of forceful repatriation of North Korean refugees by the thousands every year.

· Courageous NGO activists have suffered long prison sentences in China for sacrificially assisting NK refugees.Sadly, all too often South Korean diplomats in China have done very little to come to the aid of their citizens in prison, choosing rather to echo the accusations of the Chinese government, scolding activists for their refugee assistance on Chinese soil.

Mongolia

· Although the Mongolian government has been relatively cooperative to NK refugees by not sending them back to China when they cross the Sino-Mongolian border, still the harsh geographic and climatic conditions of the Gobi Desert have resulted in the needless deaths of many scores of NK refugees who risked their lives to flee repatriation in China.

Thailand

· There are currently approximately 600 NK refugees in Thailand. At present, there are approximately 400 NK refugees in the International Detention Center (IDC) near Bangkok. 300 of the internees are women and 100 are men.

· Conditions within the IDC have been deteriorating for many months, especially since the coup in September of 2006. Overcrowding, the extreme shortage of toilets and showers have made conditions extremely difficult for the NK refugees, even prompting hunger strikes.

· Up until early 2007, the South Korean embassy was processing a mere trickle 10 NK refugees per month for resettlement and transporting them to Seoul. During 2007,the pace of resettlement processing by the embassy increased to 40/wk. just after the presidential elections on Dec. 19, 2007.

Laos

· NK refugees consider Laos to be marginally better than conditions in China, but not nearly as safe as Mongolia or Thailand due to its communist government.

Vietnam

· Following the wrong-footed massive airlift of 469 NK refugees from Vietnam by the South Korean embassy in Hanoi in 2004, the Vietnamese government gave the embassy an ultimatum to stop processing NK refugees there.

Russia

· The Russian border patrol has history of sending NK refugees back to China if they enter Russian soil from that country.

Shifts underway in North Korea

South Korean daily Dong-a Ilbo reports that, fearing a military coup against him, Kim Jong-il is pulling back some power from his military, a major shift in North Korea’s military-first policy.

A North Korean government source says funds for the armed forces are being cut by 30 per cent to prevent the generals from taking over. Meanwhile the secret police apparatus is strengthened, the Ministry of People’s Security.

According to this anonymous government source, the shift indicates that Kim Jong-il is afraid of the power vacuum that his death might cause, and that he is convinced that his dynasty has the right to rule over the country. For this reason he does not want the military to dominate a power struggle.

Additionally, The Washington Post reminds us, “A grim rite of spring is the calculation of how many North Koreans could starve before the fall harvest -- and what the neighbors are willing to do about it.”

Severe crop failure in the North, surging global prices for food and tougher behavior by donors, particularly South Korea and China, are putting unaccustomed pressure on Kim Jong Il's dysfunctional communist state.

Please consider sending a letter to Chinese embassies and consulates in your area, using the letter below as a model if you wish. [To locate the embassy in your country]

His Excellency Hu Jintao
President, People’s Republic of China
c/o His Excellency Zhou Wenzhong
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Embassy of the People’s Republic of China
2300 Connecticut Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20008

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing with an urgent request that your country not repatriate to North Korea the four North Korean refugees arrested on March 5, 2008, by the Chinese authorities and now being held in Shenyang Border Patrol Detention Center. The four include
three women and one man identified as follows: Hahn Chang Kuk (male, aged 30), Lee Jong-Sun (female), Lee Kung-Shin (female, 30) and Lee Jong-Shin (female, 33).

As you now, there have been several recent incidents reported by the media of public executions by the North Korean authorities for North Koreans that were sent back to North Korea by South Korea and China. We believe that these four refugees will
be executed if they are sent back to North Korea by the Chinese border patrol.

As we have stated in previous letters to you, we understand and respect China’s concerns about its borders with the influx of refugees from North Korea. We want to work with China to resolve this issue humanely working under international law and with respect for China and its border integrity.

We beg you to consider that these four refugees will be executed if returned by China to North Korea. They most certainly meet the conditions under the 1951 U.N. Convention on Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, which oblige China not to repatriate them.

We thank you in advance for considering our request and hope that you will protect these four individuals, whose lives are in your hands.

Sincerely,

Suzanne Scholte

North Korea Freedom Coalition

China feels pressure over North Koreans

As the Olympics approach, activists push Beijing to halt its crackdown on refugees from its impoverished neighbor and those who help them defect to South Korea.

North Koreans cross over the Tumen River in an attempt to defect to South Korea. High barbed-wire fences have been erected along the banks of the Tumen River, which runs along part of China's border with North Korea. Recently, the Chinese have started blocking routes leading out of China as well, installing ultrared heat and motion sensors in the desert terrain near the border with Mongolia. Mobile telephone calls and e-mails among activists are monitored, and informants pose as defectors to infiltrate safe houses where North Koreans are hiding. Those caught are repatriated to North Korea.

Human rights advocates are now pushing China for at least a truce in honor of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing in August. The treatment of North Koreans, along with concerns that China is not doing enough to stop the bloodshed in the Darfur region of ally Sudan, threatens to shadow the Games.

"These Olympics are just about the most important international event in Chinese history. If they want to brag to the world about what a safe and stable place China is, they have to do something for the refugees," said Do Hee-youn, who runs a fund for North Korean defectors in Seoul.

There are some indications that the Chinese are paying heed. In December, they unexpectedly released Yu Sang-jun, a defector who had become an activist. Caught guiding refugees to the border, he was held for less than four months, a short stay compared with the years-long sentences doled out to others who did the same. Christian activists in Seoul had lobbied hard for Yu's release and were delighted when he arrived safely home. But the activists were not counting on his release signaling a change of course by the Chinese.

"At best, they'll put on a public relations show for the Olympics," activist Tim Peters said. "But it won't be anything more than smoke and mirrors."

[Excerpt of an article by Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times]

Millions earmarked for North Korean refugees tied up in US Congress

The North Korean Human Rights Act passed in 2004 authorized the use of US$24 million (€16.5 million) to improve human rights in North Korea and help refugees. But none of that money has been appropriated, or approved, yet by the U.S. Congress for release, Christian Whiton, deputy to the U.S. special envoy on human rights in North Korea, said.

Hundreds of North Koreans flee starvation, economic and political repression every year, hoping to find refuge in a third country. Many escape into China and take a long and risky land journey through the jungles of neighboring Laos and into Thailand, while others try to cross the Gobi desert into Mongolia.

China treats North Korean defectors as economic migrants and forcibly repatriates many of those it finds, to almost certain incarceration, torture and possible execution. Ahead of the Beijing Olympics, China's police are stepping up surveillance along the border with North Korea and cracking down on refugee shelters, said Tim Peters, founder of the private group Helping Hands North Korea.

"When you're putting on a huge festival like the Olympics, the last thing China wants is a public relations nightmare such as North Korean refugees showing up at inopportune times," Peters said at the lecture. He called for China to abide by its international obligations and treat North Koreans as refugees, not as illegal migrants.

Peters - whose organization escorts refugees across borders to find asylum in third countries - said the crackdown was forcing refugees to abandon urban safehouses for more rural ones, and that some of these were as basic as a simple hole in the ground where a North Korean may live for up to a year, waiting for the right moment to flee.

[Excerpt of an article by Cassie Biggs, Associated Press]

Worst Christian Persecution Expected in Saudi Arabia, North Korea

A UK-based Christian human rights group says that in 2008 some of the harshest persecution endured by Christians is likely to take place in states where Christianity is illegal - North Korea and Saudi Arabia.

“Imprisonment … continues to be a fact of life for secret Christians in North Korea,” says Tim Peters of Helping Hands Korea, which supports refugees escaping the repressive regime of Kim Jong-Il.

“Pressures include an absolute ban on owning a Bible, assembling to pray or to read the Scriptures, and evangelism - even of one’s own children. Being discovered as a member of the underground church inside North Korea can result in one’s entire family being sent to a prison camp.”

Emotional airport welcome for North Korean activist Yoo Sang-joon

Freed activist, Yoo Sang-joon (center) is welcomed at airport by fellow activists fighting for the cause of North Korean refugees. Yoo Sang-joon, a former North Korean refugee himself before becoming an activist, and just released from a Chinese prison, was clearly overwhelmed by the welcome/protest at the Incheon Airport.

From left to right, Norbert Vollertsen, Tim Peters, Yoo Sang-joon, Choi Young-hoon, and Mr. Lee from Save North Korea.

China frees North Korea’s ‘Pimpernel’

A North Korean dissident who risked being sent home from China to certain execution has been released one month after The Sunday Times revealed his plight. Yoo Sang-joon, 36, was the key activist in an underground Christian network that smuggles North Korean refugees across China to safety in other countries.

He landed in Seoul after the Chinese authorities bowed to diplomatic pressure and freed him after four months in secret detention.

His arrival was greeted with joy among the Christian community in South Korea, who had feared for his life. “It’s a wonderful Christmas gift,” said Tim Peters, a pastor who works with the refugees.

North Korean agents were demanding his return under a treaty between the two communist allies, even though he held a passport from South Korea. Yoo is one of the most wanted men in Kim Jong-il’s North Korea. “He would have been executed,” said Peters.

Yoo’s wife and daughter died in the North Korean famine of the 1990s and his surviving son died, aged 10, on a trek across the Gobi desert to seek safety in Mongolia.

It was the second time this year that international publicity had saved refugees from deportation back to North Korea.

Three orphaned children held in jail in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, were threatened with a forced return home. They were released and handed over to the South Korean embassy a few days after The Sunday Times published a photograph and letters from them pleading for help.

Refugees who are sent back to North Korea face some of the worst human rights abuses in the world. They have reported beatings, abuse and harsh conditions in camps and prisons. Some have been executed. Pregnant women have suffered forced abortions and the murder of their babies.

[Excerpt of Sunday Times article, by Michael Sheridan]

North Korean activist Yoo Sang-joon released

Miraculously, Yoo Sang-joon was released and returned to Korea, in amazing accordance with our prayers, claiming that he would be returned by Christmas.

As you know, other activists like Choi Young-hoon and Steven Kim served four years, others over two years, etc. So only four months was amazing!

In November, a representative from our coalition here in Seoul to help Yoo attended a judicial proceeding in China dealing with Yoo's case.

We had heard beforehand that a penalty fee for Yoo's "crimes" had been decided upon by the court. So we coalition members contributed to this amount and a legal fee. Of course, no one here is so naive as to believe that some unpleasant roadblocks would not lie ahead, but there was genuine hope (and faith) that the combined effects of international advocacy from the US, Europe, UK, HK, etc. and the pre-Olympic timing might work.

And [as we put feet to our prayers], the Lord answered wonderfully!

--Tim Peters

Urgent appeal for North Korean activist facing trial in China

A brief of an urgent appeal for North Korean activist facing trial in China, from Norbert Vollertsen:

A very brave Nth Korean man, Mr Yoo Sang-joon, tragically lost his young son as he tried to escape from China and has since been trying to rescue other North Korean refugees from danger in China.. Sadly he was arrested near the Mongolian border and we have just heard that Mr Yoo is due to be tried in China on 26th November 2007.

Activists in South Korea consider this a unique case, highlighting both the tragic background and the redemptive sacrificial motivation of Mr Yoo. Clearly his own loss has motivated immense humanitarian concern for others at risk and we sincerely hope that China will not punish Mr Yoo for simply seeking to implement the protection which China should be providing as a party to the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its Protocol.

The trial date has come unusually quickly and it is felt that the Chinese may be seeking to deal with the issue swiftly before further international attention is attracted, especially in the light of
the forthcoming Beijing Olympics.

We would be most grateful if you could write to the Chinese authorities to convey your concern for Mr Yoo as a matter of urgency before the trial on Monday. Addresses are provided below.

Lobbying addresses:

Her Excellency Ms Fu Ying,
Ambassador,
Embassy of the People's Republic of China to the UK,
49-51 Portland Place,
London W1N 1JL
> (Salutation: Your Excellency)
> Fax: +44 (0)20 7636 2981 / 5578
> E-mail: chinaemb_uk@mfa.gov.cn
> Tel: +44 (0)20 7299 4049, 07970 292561 (24 hours)
>
> If you are writing from outside the UK please refer
> to the following
> link for the relevant embassy address:
> http://www.china.org.cn/english/Embassies/197333.htm

US lashes out at North Korea's 'horrendous' human rights record

The United States lashed out Wednesday at North Korea's "horrendous" human rights record and said the international community must be "blunt" to make the hardline communist state change its ways.

The strong words by Washington came as North Korea prepared to start disabling Thursday its nuclear facilities for the first time as part of a multilateral effort.

"The human rights situation for North Koreans in North Korea and those who have fled (to China) has not improved markedly, it remains horrendous," said Mark Lagon, the State Department's director of the office to monitor and combat human trafficking. "If you want a prescription of what we should do from this point forward -- 'we must be frank and blunt with the North Korean authorities about their human rights record, which is abysmal," Lagon said.

[Agence France-Press]

How North Koreans-turned-South Korean stand out

China can verify whether a South Korean citizen is a North Korean defector by checking a social-security number, the last four digits of the social-security number indicate where the identification was issued. North Korean refugees are issued a code that indicates they are from Ansung city, the locale of a training center called Hanawon where all North Korean refugees go through a few months of settlement training to adapt to their new life in the South.

Based on this peculiar ID pattern, many North Korean settlers are often denied a Chinese entry visa. At the same time, they are also subject to employment discrimination from South Korean companies that avoid hiring them because of their lack of job skills and cultural differences.

The South Korean government abolished the problematic system in June and initiated a new one in which North Koreans receive social-security numbers that show the place of their choice of residence, not Ansung.

The remedy, however, is still not perfect. Those who received their social-security numbers before the launch of the new system still have to use their old ID, and it's impossible for them to change their ID numbers because doing so would require a change of the relevant law and parliamentary approval.

[Excerpt of an article by Sunny Lee, The Asian Times]

S. Korea and China Scuffle Over North Korean Defectors

South Korea's Foreign Ministry office filed an official protest against the treatment of South Korean diplomats by Chinese police following a tussle during the arrest of North Korean defectors, reports the Korea Daily.

Four individuals were found hiding in the restroom of a South Korean school in Beijing, where they were seeking asylum and safe passage to South Korea.

Thirty police officers arrived on the scene, blocking officials from the South Korean embassy from approaching the defectors. At one point, the report notes, police tussled with the embassy officials, pinning the arms of two and forcing them from school grounds.

Since 2004 roughly sixty North Koreans have sought asylum in the school, which is not protected by diplomatic immunity. Still, most have been allowed to go on to South Korea by Chinese authorities, which legally term such persons as 'economic migrants.'

And what of North Korean refugees?

In South Korea, one can spot the North Koreans by their stunted stature, the result of growing up on inadequate diets. They often seem befuddled in banks and restaurants, and they speak Korean with a noticeable accent.

They risked their lives to get here, but even when they're assimilated they earn half of what their South Korean brethren do — for drudge work. There are 11,000 of them in South Korea, trickling in at the rate of only 2,000 a year, but increasingly they're the unwanted relatives at the doorstep.

Earlier this year, South Korea cut the initial stipend that refugees receive, with an additional [amount] for housing, adding payments at the back end if immigrants hold jobs for more than a year.

The South Korean government, which fears that any crisis with Pyongyang could unleash a flood of North Korean migrants, seems to be pulling up the welcome mat. Experts say South Korea is seeking to slow the stream of refugees, in order to avert a mass exodus from North Korea and ease tensions with its unpredictable neighbor.

That will leave thousands of North Koreans stranded en route in China, Mongolia and Southeast Asia.

[Excerpt of article by Tim Johnson, McClatchy Newspapers]

Historic Korean Pact Signed

Leaders of the two Koreas, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korea's Kim Jong Il, began formal talks Wednesday at the first summit between the divided countries in seven years.

This week's summit is only the second time that leaders of North and South Korea have met since the Korean peninsula was divided after World War II.

The leaders of North and South Korea signed a pact pledging to seek a permanent peace agreement.

North Korean defector’s death raising concern in South Korea

A North Korean defector who had entered South Korea early this year ended her life by throwing herself from a window of a 10th-floor apartment in downtown Seoul this past month.

Kim Young-sil, 36, committed suicide in the early hours, South Korea's Yonhap said, adding that her death came as a cold shock to some 1,000 North Korean settlers who live in the same apartment complex.

Kim had been previously repatriated back to North Korea from China at least four times in her attempt to flee the starving country before she finally made it to South Korea. She was known to suffer from depression due to her post-traumatic stress from repatriation.

North Korean refugee groups in the South, however, vehemently point out that behind her death lie more fundamental problems such as the cold attitude and indifference as well as a lack of accommodative policy in South Korea for North Korean settlers, all of them acting as a trigger for her death.

[Excerpt of an article by Sunny Lee, The Asian Times]

Another North Korean defector accepted by the U.S.

A North Korean defector has departed for the United States, becoming the latest refugee to be accepted by America under a 2004 law, [thanks in part to] South Korean activist Rev. Chun Ki-won, who helps North Korean defectors.

The latest refugee brings to 31 the number of North Koreans accepted in the U.S. since 2004 when U.S. President George W. Bush signed the North Korean Human Rights Act, which mandates assistance to refugees fleeing the North, according to Chun, who heads the Seoul-based missionary group Durihana Mission.

The U.S. has said it would accept about 50 North Korean defectors living in Thailand if they meet certain criteria, but the process is being delayed due to the lack of cooperation by the South Korean government, Chun said, citing an unnamed official in the U.S. State Department.

Separately, Chun said some North Korean defectors held in a Thai immigration facility complained of skin diseases as they have been staying in a cramped detention center that accommodates about 500 North Koreans — roughly twice normal capacity.

[Excerpted from International Herald Tribune]

Major famine likely in North Korea this winter

Social phenomena unfolding in North Korea point to a tragic famine this winter, with international assistance stalled, a South Korean religious leader said Wednesday.

Ven. Pomnyun, chairman of the Good Friends Center for Peace, which engages in extensive North Korean assistance, said international standards on monitoring are still an obstacle to solving North Korea's food shortage.

[Yonhap News]

Activists cast light on North Korean underground church

Son Jong Nam …was the son of a high-ranking officer in the all-powerful military. … As an adult he became part of Kim Jong Il's personal security detail—paid well, and trusted implicitly.

All of which makes him a potent symbol now. … Son turned to one of the missionaries operating clandestinely along the border, helping refugees escape. Like many others Son converted to Christianity. Unlike most, he returned to North Korea to spread the Gospel. Today he sits on death row in Pyongyang, accused of being a spy.

Evangelicals have taken up Son's cause, drawing rare attention to the North's underground church. "To be a Christian is not just to follow a different religion," says Todd Nettleton of Voice of the Martyrs, one of several U.S. and South Korean Christian groups urging Son's release. "It's really seen almost as treason against their whole political system."

It's hard to say how many covert Christians the North has; estimates range from the low tens of thousands to 100,000. Missionaries say Christians often keep their Bibles buried in the backyard, wrapped in vinyl. Preachers based in China sometimes conduct services by mobile phone. In five to 10 minutes the pastor reads Bible passages and prays for the sick and needy. Services are kept short; the regime uses GPS trackers to locate the phones.

The Christian activists along the border are a dedicated bunch, but they have a vested interest in dramatizing the plight of their brethren in the North. The latest U.S. State Department human-rights report says that "members of underground churches have been beaten, arrested, detained in prison camps, tortured or killed" in the North, but emphasizes that such accounts are unconfirmed. Son hasn't been heard from in months. But his supporters remain convinced that they can help him to survive and, in so doing, win one small battle for a beleaguered faith.

[Excerpt of an article by Christian Caryl and B. J. Lee, Newsweek]

North Korea to shut down nuke programs

North Korea agreed Sunday to declare and disable all its nuclear programs by the end of the year, the chief U.S. negotiator said -- the first time the communist country has offered a timeline to end its secretive atomic program.

The North Korean envoy, in separate comments, told reporters his country was willing "to declare and dismantle" its nuclear program, but mentioned no dates.

[AP]