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The European Union capital Brussels will see a major conference on human rights in North Korea starting Wednesday, coinciding with the testimony of defectors from the Stalinist country before the European Parliament. The conference is the third in recent months after events in Washington last July and in Seoul in December.
The conference brings together a range of activist groups and NGOs. It is co-hosted by Human Rights without Frontiers of Belgium, Christian Solidarity Worldwide of the U.K., the French Committee to Help the Population of North Korea, and Freedom House of the U.S. The parliamentary hearing was organized by Hungarian MEP Istvan Szent-Ivany.
¡°The conference will focus on the role played by the European Parliament and human rights organizations to improve human rights conditions in the North,¡± organizers said. They argue the EU has the most balanced perspective among foreign powers in approaching North Korean human rights issues and is free from political or military interests in the North.
Those invited include the U.S. North Korean human rights envoy, Jay Lefkowitz, Japan¡¯s Ambassador of Human Rights Fumiko Saiga, EU Council human rights official Hadewych Hazelzet, and U.K. MEP Graham Watson.
From South Korea, the conference will be attended by Yoo Se-hee of Citizens United for a Better Society, Shin Ji-ho of Liberty Union and Han Ki-hong of Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights. They have vowed to inform Europeans of human rights abuses in the North, focusing on the forced repatriation of North Korean refugees, concentration camps for political dissidents, public executions and other brutality.
North Korean defectors will also testify at the conference, while NGOs and activists will propose ways of improving conditions in the North. Panel discussions will focus on the plight of refugees and problems with international humanitarian aid to North. The conference in Seoul last year resolved to draw attention to North Korean abuses on Human Rights Day (Dec. 20) every year, and the ¡°Seoul Declaration¡± called for an international network to address North Korean human rights issues.
Meanwhile, a group of students and civil activists from South Korea and abroad calling themselves Expedition for Peace on the Korean Peninsula will hold a press conference in Brussels on the eve of the conference to protest against what they say is a hidden agenda by the U.S. in taking up the problem. They will also hold street protests to denounce what they believe is ¡°an attempt to further divide the two Koreas by encouraging the establishment in South Korean society, who oppose unification.¡± They say they are making the trip to show that Koreans are ¡°making efforts for reconciliation and solidarity between the two Koreas.¡±
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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