Dissident Yoo arrested, facing trial and deportation

Please read the account of this over at One Free Korea. It's unlikely that China will respond to grassroots pressure on this issue - but it's still possible.

ROK Abstains on UN DPRK Human Rights Resolution

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With the arrival of the Thanksgiving holiday, we all have a chance to remember on the many things we have to be thankful for. As we do so, let's remember the people in North Korea and elsewhere who are not so fortunate. Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi once urged the free world to "use your freedom to promote ours." As we reflect on what we do have, let us do so with an eye toward using our blessings - in whatever capacity - to bring help and hope to those who so desperately need it.
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From the International Herald Tribune:

A U.N. General Assembly committee adopted a draft resolution Tuesday expressing "very serious concern" at persistent reports of widespread human rights violations in North Korea including torture, inhumane conditions of detention and public executions.

The assembly's human rights committee approved the resolution by a vote of 97-23 with 60 abstentions, including South Korea. The draft now goes to the 192-member General Assembly for a final vote.

[...]

North Korea said it "categorically resents" the draft resolution which it said is "filled with fabrications" and "cannot be justified in any case" because it does not also condemn human rights violations committed by the countries co-sponsoring it.

The draft cites North Korea's "all-pervasive and severe restrictions on the freedoms of thought, conscience, religion, opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and association" by persecuting people exercising these rights and barring their freedom of movement and travel abroad.

It singles out "the persistence of continuing reports of systematic, widespread and grave violations of civil, political and economic, social and cultural rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea including torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including inhuman conditions of detention, public executions, extrajudicial and arbitrary detention..."

This is not entirely unexpected; South Korea abstained from similar resolutions from 2003 to 2005. Although they did support a similar resolution in 2006, two things have changed since then: 1) North Korea has been behaving fairly well and 2) South Korean Ban Ki-moon is not running for Secretary-General.

Interestingly enough, editorial opinion in South Korea seems to be fairly unanimously critical of the move. Both Chosun Ilbo on the right and Hankyoreh on the left criticize it in the following editorials:

Chosun Ilbo: A Wrong View on Human Rights

Chosun Ilbo: Abstaining from UN Vote on N. Korea is Cowardly

Hankyoreh: S. Korea's abstention on human rights resolution

Some items of interest

Daily NK: The US House of Representatives has passed a bill encouraging China to abide by its obligations under international treaties.

JoongAng Daily: North Korea's state-run media appears to be changing its tune with regard to contact with the outside world, claiming, "[t]he republic has always maintained its position that it wants to have good relations, even with capitalist countries."

Daily NK: North Korean defector Lee Sang Hyuk has been caught, but not before he apparently got in contact with relatives in the South. This won't help his cause.