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.

Bordering on the absurd

Sometimes you read something about Kim Jong-il that makes you wonder if it's parody. Consider this example of his capriciousness and utter control over his people, from the Daily NK:

You idiots!” said Kim Jong Il swearing at his attendants while looking at a potato field through the car window during his visit to Daehongdan on August 9th, 1999.

A large banner with the slogan saying “Potato is white rice!” was hanging at the entrance to every potato field.

In fact, the local cadres and officials from Propaganda and Agitation Department under the Workers’ Party ordered to put up the banner in every potato field because when Kim Jong Il visited the county a year ago, he said to them, “Potato is the same as white rice.”

Of course, the potato cultivation is important. However, it is basically nonsense that growing potato is as important as growing white rice, which is the staple food of the Korean diet. Kim Jong Il forgot that it was him who said the nonsense.

Pulling up his car in front of the banner at the potato field in Daehongdan County, Kim Jong Il said yelling, “Who the heck said those words? Does it make any sense that potato is white rice?”

On that day, as his first schedule of the day’s program, he visited a field where a new kind of potato starts to be reaped.

When Kim Jong Il was getting out of his car, Kim Sung Jin, a chief secretary of the county came running toward him, only to be brought to a halt by Kim Jong Il who raised his hand gesturing him to stop.

“Does it make any sense to you that potato is the same as white rice?”

Having sensed something went wrong, Kim Sung Jin’s face turned pale. He had no idea when Kim Jong Il would start pouring out his anger on him. He just stood still frozen with fear. (He said later to his colleagues, “It was like the whole world turned upside down.”)

Kim Jong Il putting his hands under his armpits was gazing at something for quite some time. It was a large message board engraved with Kim Jong Il’s own words, “Potato is the same as white rice.” Looking at the board quite a while, Kim Jong Il burst into a laughter.

Pointing at the board, Kim Jong Il asked of Kim Sung Jin who was standing vacantly “Hey, did I really say that?” Kim Sung Jin answered in a position of attention, “Yes, General. You said those words when you visited Daehongdan on October 1st last year.”

Kim Jong Il, looking dumbfounded and awkward, looked at the board again and said, “Oh, my! You fools took my words too far. How could potato ever be the same as the rice? Pull it down right away!”

“Yes, Sir!,” Kim Sung Jin answered out loud. Then, he ran off to his men and ordered them to get rid of the banner immediately.

More speculation on famine this year

This is from the BBC:

North Korea needs at least 5.3 million tonnes of food until autumn 2008, but it will only be able to supply 3.9 million, leaving a gap of 1.4 million tonnes, the KREI study said.

It said the communist state's farming sector was damaged to the tune of $275m (£134m) in the flooding.

"The North's food inventory has almost hit the bottom, so unless there's an extraordinary measure to stabilise supply, there may be a situation next year similar to the late 1990s," it said.

North Korea has described this year's floods as amongst the worst the country has seen. They affected one million people, killing at least 600 and wiping out more than 10% of farmland.

But Unicef's deputy representative in North Korea, Michel Le Pechoux, said that while the situation was "still fragile", it was not likely to lead to famine.

He said circumstances were very different to the devastation seen in the 1990s.

The 1990s, of course, saw anywhere between 200,000 and 3.5 million people die from famine in North Korea. The very fact that North Korea is admitting they've suffered severe flood damage is a sign that things could get very bad here.

Surprise, surprise

North Korea is the second worst country in the world in terms of press freedom, according to a recent report by Reporters Without Borders.

Notable this year is the increasing government crackdown on Internet media, the group said.

"Several countries fell in the ranking this year because of serious, repeated violations of the free flow of online news and information," it said.

"The governments of repressive countries are now targeting bloggers and online journalists as forcefully as journalists in the traditional media."

The cost of illegal filming

Daily NK has a pretty horrifying report out about a man who was caught filming in a North Korean market. Those of you who have watched Seoul Train will probably remember that people caught filming are subject to execution. In this case, the cameraman escaped with his life, but suffered pretty badly for his actions.

A North Korean citizen who tried to capture the North Korean jangmadang (market) on a video camera was arrested by the National Security Agency and received the cruel punishment of having his achilles heel severed, reported Free North Korea Broadcasting (Free NK) on the 28th.

Free NK relayed that Mr. Shim, who was investigated for a month in closed confinement at the National Safety Agency for a cell-phone usage in August, heard the news about the NSA's torture of Huh Sang Chul (35), whom he had met at the same detention house.

According to Mr. Shim, Huh was arrested while filming at the Hoiryeong Jangmadang in mid July. While being investigated for over a month, the broadcast reported that he confessed to filming the lives of average civilians and the market and to selling the images.

According to the article (the rest of which is available here) he was charged with "handing over national secrets."