"fundamental human rights" committed "by North Korean authorities against their own people," organizers said Friday, January 26.
There are an estimated 200,000 people locked up in labor camps, many of them Christians as Christianity, and even the word ‘God’ has been banned in the country, observers have said.
Thousands of people, including Christians, are believed to have died in these camps in recent
years.
British parliamentarian Stephen Crabb delivered the petition, a joint initiative between Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) and Danish European Mission (DEM).
Crabb was accompanied by Rev. Stuart Windsor, National Director of CSW, and Benjamin Bach, Missions Secretary from DEM. "We the undersigned wish to register our profound concern over the very serious abuse of fundamental human rights in North Korea," the petition states.
SERIOUS PUNISHMENTS
The abuses includes "the withholding of religious freedom and serious punishments imposed upon religious believers, extra-judicial imprisonment in political prison camps, the use of torture, execution, forced abortion and the punishment of those returning from China."
In comments sent to BosNewsLife Crabb said," International attention has focused on [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Il and his regime, but we must not forget the fear and suffering faced by the people of North Korea every day." He said the petition has "received strong support in denouncing these atrocities and I am pleased to add my support by delivering it to the door of the North Korean authorities."
Bach and Windsor also expressed concerns about the "daily suffering" of people but warned that the "the cloak of secrecy that has long shrouded North Korea’s human rights abuses is lifting."
