Just a quick blog.
LiNK
For those who are too apathetic to click on it, I’m putting up an excerpt from the site.
Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must- at that moment, become the center of the world.丒br>
Elie Wiesel
North Korea today has a 23 million strong population.
More than 200,000 thousand prisoners [and by some estimates up to one million] are being held in just 5 of the 15 prison camps in the nation.
North Korea’s State Security Agency maintains 12 political prisons and about 30 forced labor and reeducation camps.
At least two of these camps are larger in area than the District of Columbia. One camp, Camp Huaong, is three times the size of Washington, D.C.
[MSNBC, Death, terror in N. Korea gulag.丒January 15, 2004]
In the last three decades more than 400,000 are believed to have perished in the gulag. [US News and World Report, Gulag Nation.丒June 23, 2003]
Since 1994, an estimated 4 to 7 million have died of starvation, despite the fact that North Korea receives more food aid than any other nation in the entire world. [WORLD magazine, View from the Axis.丒March 9, 2002]
Between 1995 and 1998, North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Il has starved to death two million of his own people. [US Department of State, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,丒2000. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.]
Most foreign aid donations have been diverted to Pyongyang’s elite and military. Médicins Sans Frontiéres, Oxfam, and other NGOs have pulled out of North Korea due to the lack of monitoring of aid distribution and the lack of access to the most vulnerable provinces. [Amnesty International, DPRK 丒Persecuting the Starving, December 2000]
North Korea is the worst human rights violating state in the world today. [Newsweek International, July 9, 2001]
In July 2001, seven members of the Jang family successfully escaped from N. Korea after seeking asylum in S. Korea at a UN office in Beijing. The media attention of this event was enormous. In revealing contrast, one year ago, another group of seven had sought asylum in S. Korea at a Russian embassy in China. News coverage was sparse. They were promptly deported back to N. Korea where they have endured imprisonment.
The more the world realizes just how bad the people are suffering in N. Korea, the world’s governments will be less inclined to tolerate a regime that causes such suffering. The media plays a vital role of increasing this realization in the world.丒br>
[Chosun Journal, www.chosunjournal.com]
They showed a preview of Seoul Train, a documentary project by LiNK during Korea Night.
It was the images of the children that got to me.
It’s always the children.
