Panelists Urge for Action Against North Korea Atrocities
ICC NOTE: The topic of human rights is becoming more and more of a priority for government and non-governmental groups and individuals around the world. The ICC would agree that North Korea is an important country to focus on, as the human rights situation has been worsening considerably.
Thursday, May. 25, 2006 Posted: 2:23:51PM
NEW YORK – Human rights is not a “dirty word” nor is it a bomb, said a specialist in human rights and humanitarian issues at a panel discussion concerning North Korea Wednesday.
“It has to be seen as a legitimate subject,” stated Roberta Cohen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Human rights activists, church leaders and individuals concerned with the atrocious human rights situation in the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea ) sat in on a half-day discussion that tackled urgent issues of food security, religious persecution, refugees and the currently stalled six-party talks.
“All parties need to be ready to take human rights very seriously,” said Chung Eui-yong, member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea , as a panelist on the topic of human rights being addressed in a comprehensive Northeast Asia security regime.
The timely gathering, co-sponsored by Asia Society, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and Refugees International, came as North Korea’s violations of human rights has become a larger part of the U.S. agenda in recent months.
North Korea ‘s unchanging human rights situation has become a more flagrant issue in the United States with increased accounts of the lives of North Koreans and their daily sufferings being exposed and published, including USCIRF’s landmark report Thank you Father Kim Il Sung.
