The North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004

Abstract

IntroductionOn October i8, 2004, President George W. Bush signed into law H.R. 40ii, the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. Act is intended to help promote human rights and freedom in the Democratic People's Republic of according to the Office of the Press Secretary of the White House. Controversies surrounding the Act began before it was officially enacted and continue to cloud efforts of many who are deeply concerned about human rights violations in North Korea. This paper is intended to clarify selected issues of controversy that surround key provisions of the Act that may hurt more than help the very people that the Act is intended to help. At this time, main concerns relate to human rights violations continuing inside North Korea and North Korean refugee problems in China.Human Rights Violations in North KoreaHuman rights violations in North Korea have been well documented in numerous publications. a special edition of the U.S. News & World Report, Omestad states that Today, at least 200,000 political prisoners are held in six giant camps, according to South Korean and U.S. officials, and the number may be growing as North Korea's leaders tighten their grip on a hungry and desperate population. The camps are nothing short of human black holes, into which purported enemies of the regime disappear and rarely exit. (Omestad, 2003, p. i2) Further, In the past three decades, some 400,000 North Koreans are believed to have perished in the gulag. Yet relatively little is known about the camps, which are sealed off from international scrutiny. U.S. News tracked down five former prisoners and who managed to defect to South Korea, and they describe a world of routine horror: beatings, crippling torture, hunger, slave-style labor, and executions. Fetuses are said to be aborted by salt water injected into women's wombs; if that fails, babies are strangled upon delivery. Guards practice tae kwon do on prisoners, who obediently line up to take their punches and kicks. (Omestad, 2003, p. i4) Lee, a female, who was fortunate to survive, said that guards force-fed her water by pushing the spout of a canister into her mouth. They laid a wooden plank across her abdomen-and pressed down, forcing water out through her mouth, nose, and bladder. (Omestad, 2003, p. i8)Jang relates other horror stories by former refugees from North Korea: saw stepping on infants' necks and tossing their bodies into buckets while their mothers screamed, said a North Korean defector. She also spoke of a woman being tied to a wooden post and then shot i8 times for begging to be allowed to feed her small children. I moved rocks for i8 hours every day but was given no more than 22 kernels of corn to eat, another defector testified. The other prisoners and I got a break once when someone was caught trying to escape. We were all forced to attend the execution. We had to throw stones at the escapee. Our loyalty to the regime was measured by the size of the stone we threw. (Jang, 2004, p. 40)A more official assessment on human rights violations in North Korea has been issued annually by the U.S. Department of State. A recent report concludes that North Korea's human rights record remains extremely poor, citing defectors who have reported that In some cases, notably at the height of the famine in the i990s, executions reportedly were carried out at public meetings attended by workers, students, school children, and before assembled inmates at places of detention; that government officials prohibit live births in prison. Forced abortion and the killing of newborn babies reportedly were standard prison practices; and that members of underground churches have been killed because of their religious beliefs and suspected contacts with overseas evangelical groups operating across the Chinese border. (U.S. Department of State, 2005, p. 2)Reports on human rights violations in North Korea are virtually endless and continue to be repeated by many defectors, humanitarian workers, and writers familiar with these cases. …