Category: North Korea

The United Nations is once again highlighting North Korea abysmal human rights record which includes the kidnapping of up to 200,000 foreign nationals:

The UN Human Rights Council on Friday strongly criticised North Korea for the “systematic abduction” of foreigners, after a UN investigation found the country had snatched up to 200,000 foreign nationals.

The resolution, he told the council, was “intended to bring down the system and ideology” of his country.

The adopted text decried North Korea’s “systematic abduction, denial of repatriation and subsequent enforced disappearance of persons, including those from other countries, on a large scale and as a matter of state policy”.

A UN-mandated investigation issued a searing report in February 2014 accusing North Korea of committing human rights violations “without parallel in the contemporary world”, including the abductions of an estimated 200,000 foreign nationals from at least 12 countries.

Most of them were South Koreans left stranded after the 1950-1953 Korean War, but hundreds of others from around the world have since been taken or disappeared while visiting the secretive Stalinist state.  [AFP]

You can read the rest at the link, but the report is timely since they have just kidnapped two more foreign nationals this past week.

Resettlement Program for Defectors Needs Total Overhaul – Editorial http://t.co/CiBZuoLiVS via @EnglishChosun

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) March 26, 2015

Here is another example of how subversive media is continuing to spread within South Korea:

A $50 portable media player is providing many North Koreans a window to the outside world despite the government’s efforts to keep its people isolated – a symbol of change in one of the world’s most repressed societies.

By some estimates, up to half of all urban North Korean households have an easily concealed “notel”, a small portable media player used to watch DVDs or content stored on USB sticks that can be easily smuggled into the country and passed hand to hand.

People are exchanging South Korean soaps, pop music, Hollywood films and news programs, all of which are expressly prohibited by the Pyongyang regime, according to North Korean defectors, activists and recent visitors to the isolated country.

“The North Korean government takes their national ideology extremely seriously, so the spread of all this media that competes with their propaganda is a big and growing problem for them,” said Sokeel Park of Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), an organization that works with defectors.

“If Pyongyang fails to successfully adapt to these trends, they could threaten the long-term survival of the regime itself.”   [Reuters via the Marmots Hole]

You can read more at the link, but subversive media is better than any sanctions in my opinion at undermining the Kim regime.

N Korea broke 5 UNSC resolutions, 2 agreed frameworks, 1 leap day deal & 1 armistice, ergo, let's do a peace treaty! http://t.co/TdDK7eMlve

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) March 22, 2015

This just shows that North Korea’s threats work and that is why they continue to make them:

A defector-turned-activist said Monday he will halt his campaign of sending anti-Pyongyang propaganda via balloons over the demilitarized zone into North Korea after it caused escalating military tension at the inter-Korean border.

“I can see the North’s fear of the leaflets,” said Park Sang-hak, founder of the rights group Fighters for a Free North Korea. “We won’t send the leaflets for some time.”

Earlier this month, the group said it would send leaflets carrying messages critical of the Kim Jong-un regime and 5,000 DVDs of the Hollywood comedy “The Interview,” which depicted an assassination of the young ruler, over the border by balloons sometime around Thursday. Thursday is the fifth anniversary of the North’s sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan, although Pyongyang has denied responsibility.

Park demanded Monday that the North apologize for sinking the Cheonan, and if it doesn’t, his group will eventually dispatch the leaflets and DVDs.

Tension between the two Koreas’ militaries reached a new peak over the weekend as a result of Park’s plan. On Sunday, the North threatened to use “all the firepower means” to destroy the balloons. The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency released a warning from frontline units of its military.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I am sure Park Sang-hak was under a lot of pressure from the South Korean government to suspend the balloon launches due to the talks over the Kaesong Industrial Complex they are trying to have with the North Koreans.

It seems that North Korea is very serious about stopping the Fighters for A Free North Korea from releasing balloons with copies of “The Interview” on it:

North Korea on Sunday renewed its threats against a South Korean civic group’s plan to send anti-Pyongyang fliers across the border via balloon, warning it will use “all the firepower strike means” to destroy them.

The message, posted as an open notice by the frontline units of the North’s Korean People’s Army (KPA), came about a week after a leading activist in Seoul reaffirmed his intent to scatter materials criticizing the communist regime across the border around March 26.

The date marks the 5th anniversary of Pyongyang’s torpedoing of the South Korean corvette Cheonan.

Park Sang-hak, head of the activist group, said earlier this month he and other North Korean defectors would release balloons holding 500,000 leaflets, as well as DVDs of the U.S. film “The Interview,” a comedy depicting a fictitious assassination of the North’s leader Kim Jong-un.

According to the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the KPA’s open notice said the campaign “deliberately (escalates) tension on the Korean peninsula where the situation has reached the brink of war” on top of the annual Seoul-Washington military drills that kicked off March 2.

Should the campaign be carried out, the North’s frontline army will “blow up” the balloons with “all the firepower strike means,” it said, adding that any countermeasures will “entail double and treble merciless retaliatory strikes.”

In October the two Koreas exchanged gunfire after the North attempted to shoot down balloons carrying similar leaflets. South Korea suffered no casualties or property damage.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the group should just secretly fly the balloons across the border so the North Koreans do not have a chance to retaliate against them if they are dead set on doing this.

Kim is definitely going to Moscow, say Russian sources: http://t.co/o3WeS1qO5p

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) March 20, 2015

The North Koreans are claiming they have nuclear tipped missiles now:

 

A North Korean envoy says his country has developed nuclear missiles and is prepared to use them at any time.

North Korean Ambassador to Britain Hyun Hak Bong said in a recent interview with British broadcaster Sky News that his government would use the missiles in response to a nuclear attack by the United States.

Asked whether North Korea has the ability now to launch a nuclear missile, Hyun replied: “Any time. Any time. Yes.”

“If the United States strike us, we should strike back,” he said.

Asked if North Korea would only fire nuclear missiles in retaliation, Hyun replied: “We are a peace-loving people you know. We don’t want war but we are not afraid of war. This is our policy of the government.”

North Korea is thought to have a handful of crude nuclear bombs and has conducted three nuclear tests since 2006. But experts are divided on how far it has come in developing the technology needed to miniaturize warheads so they can be placed on missiles.   [Associated Press]

You can read the rest at the link, but South Korean intelligence does not think the North has advanced their nuclear weapons technology to be able to fit on a missile warhead.  One thing is clear though, even if they haven’t mastered the technology yet they are making it a national priority to do so.  This means the US military needs to plan for a nuclear North Korea in response.

The Interview: South Korea bans balloon drop of DVDs into North http://t.co/tPhGDM01oF

— South Korea Daily (@SouthKoreaDaily) March 20, 2015

Fantastic video on changing beauty standards of North & South Korea — in one minute @KungPaoKimchi @BuckTurgidson79 https://t.co/qkl0TJegfX

— A Fistful of Dollars (@goldmansachs666) March 18, 2015