Protestors, US lawmakers assail North Korea on rights
ICC Note: Latest protest against North Korea highlights human rights including religious freedom
7/16/10 North Korea (AFP) - More than 100 protesters, spurred on by a handful of US lawmakers, demonstrated Wednesday outside the US Congress to condemn North Korea's human rights record and denounce the regime in Pyongyang.
Republican Senator Sam Brownback, author of legislation to return North Korea to a US terrorism blacklist, said the demonstration gave voice to North Koreans "kept in prisons, kept in gulags, kept voiceless."
"The United States needs to step up," notably to help North Koreans who fled to China avoid being sent home forcibly, Brownback told the cheering crowd under a steady drizzle a stone's throw from the US Capitol.
Brownback noted he was retiring from the senate to run for governor of his home state of Kansas but implored the protesters: "You can't leave the stage until the people of North Korea are free."
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the crowd that the United States must step up pressure on North Korea over its nuclear dealings and widely reported rights abuses.
"North Korea will be free," she promised, and "the Korean Peninsula will be unified."
The demonstration was organized by the Korean Church Coalition for North Korea Freedom.
...
