Worldwide Awareness Day for North Korean Refugees

Worldwide Awareness Day for North Korean Refugees

By Dan Wooding, who has reported from North Korea
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
WASHINGTON, DC (ANS) -- While the world watches for a possible nuclear missile test by North Korea in the coming days and the Kim Jong Eun regime increases its hostile rhetoric, this is an important time to be focusing on promoting the freedom, human rights, and dignity of the North Korean people.

Kim Jong Eun makes a point

According to the North Korea Freedom Coalition (http://www.nkfreedom.org), May 2 is the Worldwide Awareness Day for North Korean Refugees where concerned people can show their support to this work. "It is imperative that China stop their repatriation of the North Korean Refugees in China! By forcing them back to North Korea they face certain torture, imprisonment and even execution," said a news release from the group.
"Now, that Xi Jinping has assumed the presidency of China and China has shown its increasing displeasure with the North Korea regime, this peaceful Worldwide Awareness Day for North Korean Refugees will focus on direct appeals to Xi to reverse China's repatriation policy - something that is also most definitely in China's best interest.

Protest during North Korea Freedom Week 2008, outside the Chinese Embassy, Washington, D.C.

"In fact, the people of China are increasingly voicing their displeasure about their government's constant support of Kim Jong Eun with his reckless threats and provocations. Yet, just last month, South Korean reporter Joo Sung Ha, released a copy of a Chinese police order that offered rewards to those who turn in North Korean refugees and severe punishment for those who know about refugees and do not turn them into the police." The group has launched a petition to Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China. To get more information, just go to http://www.nkfreedom.org or www.defenseforumfoundation.org
"If we can get this petition signed by as many people as possible from around the world before May 2nd and delivered to the Chinese Embassy/Consulate nearest you on that day, it will send a message that the world is watching!" added the news release. "We pray and trust this effort will make a difference for the North Korean refugees!"
North Korea's Prison Camps

A scene from a North Korean Prison Camp Dan

According to the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, there exists a vast network of structured institutions for punishment in North Korea including forced-labor colonies, camps, prisons, along with short-term detention facilities along the North Korea-China border. Prisoners are brutally treated in these institutions with testimonies from North Korean defectors describing the application of torture techniques, hard labor, starvation, forced abortions, infanticide, families of up to three generations imprisoned, detention without judicial process, public executions, chemical and medical experimentation on prisoners, and gas chambers, resulting in thousands of deaths. Comparisons have been frequently made to the Nazi concentration camps.
What is the North Korea Freedom Coalition?
The North Korea Freedom Coalition is a nonpartisan coalition founded in June, 2003 to work for the freedom, human rights, and dignity of the North Korea people. The Coalition currently has over 70 public member organizations representing millions of American, South and North Korean, and Japanese citizens as well as other nations, along with many individual members. The Coalition also has private members that provide humanitarian relief inside North Korea and members in China and other nations that feed, shelter, and rescue North Korean refugees.
Members are from all political parties and religious faiths and have many different views about North Korea, but share one thing in common: all believe that promoting human rights for North Korea must be the central focus of any and all policy towards North Korea.
The Coalition works closely with elected officials, other non-governmental organizations, and governments to achieve its goals.
The Coalition says that it is most proud of the fact that all the major NGOs in the USA, Japan, and South Korea, and especially the North Korean defectors' organizations, are either members of the Coalition or work as partners with the Coalition on its many activities.
Note: To hear some powerful testimonies by Dr. Suzanne Scholte, President of Defense Forum Foundation; two North Korean Defectors; and Paul Kim from IHOP, please go to: http://victorypeople.org/audio/Testimony%20from%20North%20Korean%20Refugees%20-%20Mar%203,%202013.mp3
Note: Dan Wooding is one of the few Christian journalists to report from inside of North Korea. He spent a week there reporting for the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC.