Keeping America Strong. Promoting Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights Abroad.

Published on Apr 28, 2014

North Korea human rights activist Suzanne Scholte has called on South Korean politicians to come together... and have a united voice in calling for improved human rights conditions in North Korea.
If not, they will be regarded as enablers of a disaster, as tragic as the Sewol-ho ferry accident.
Our Laah Hyun-kyung has this report. South Korean politicians, who refuse to pass a North Korea human rights act, are like the captain of the sunken Sewol-ho ferry,... says North Korea human rights activist Suzanne Scholte.


"Those people remind me of the captain of the Sewol ferry because this man turned away from people, whose lives were in terrible danger.
And hid his face and this is what the people are doing, that won't address the North Korean human rights issue, hiding their faces and ignoring the political prison camps, the starvation, the crimes against humanity.
The fact that women are being bought and sold and trafficked in China, North Korean women...is happening today."

Scholte says,... even if North Korea's human rights violation cases are referred to the International Criminal Court, as suggested by the UN Commission of Inquiry after publishing a report last month,... it will have limited effects.


"And that's because China and Russia will obviously block progress because they don't believe, as a member of the Security Council, that the Security Council has the right to be involved and address human rights issues."

And that's why South Korea's role is crucial.
She says... an average North Korean no longer believes what they are being told by the regime is true.
The people in North Korea have access to the outside world.
And the outside world can utilize this.


"I believe that most people in that dictatorship are really questioning 
whether blind following Kim Jong-un is the way forward.
So my point is.. you start to say that not only do we know who are committing these crimes, we know that it's you who's been involved with this.
We start naming names, we make it costly for them to continue to blindly follow this regime.
And we need to be broadcasting that information in because the North Korean people I believe are starting to learn the truth and realize that the source of their misery, the source of their suffering is the Kim Jong-un regime, not South Korea, not the United States, not the people from outside world. It's the regime causing them terrible suffering."

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