North Korea today is home to a network of several dozen concentration camps rivaling those of Auschwitz and Dachau of days past, hosting over 250,000 political prisoners and their families. North Korea is a prison state- there are no freedoms of religion, speech, movement, assembly- even the right to leave the nation is barred from the people.
Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have fled to neighboring China, only to be hunted down by Chinese authorities and sent back to North Korea to face torture and death; or to be sold by brokers and smugglers as labor or sexual slaves. An additional 15,000 North Koreans toil in slave labor camps outside North Korea- in nations like Russia, Mongolia, Poland and several Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian nations.
In a country of 23 million people oppressed and suffering, malnutrition and starvation are at epidemic rates, and people have been largely forgotten amidst talk of nuclear weapons and political posturing.
Adrian Hong, Executive Director of Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), will give a broad overview of the tremendous human rights crisis in North Korea today, and share about worldwide efforts to help these forgotten people.
This is not a crisis instigated by natural disaster, civil war, or warring factions in a failed state. This is institutionalized human rights abuse on a massive scale, at it’s worst. Why has the world failed them? Does knowledge bring about responsibility? Come and learn about the problem and what you can do to save these lives.