The April 26-May 3 event, which includes rallies and prayer services for North Korea, comes after the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom urged China to stop sending North Korean refugees back to their homeland.
The Commission, which monitors religious freedom worldwide and makes policy recommendations, said refugees suspected of meeting with religious groups are "marked for harsh interrogation, torture and long detentions without trial" after returning to North Korea.
"We must speak out about this human rights issue," said Carl Moeller, president of Open Doors USA, an advocacy group supporting Christians who it says are persecuted for their faith in Christ.
INTERNATIONAL PROTEST
Among major events to be held was an international protest against China’s repatriation policy around noon Saturday, April 26 in front of Chinese embassies in Washington D.C. and other world capitals.
Other key events include an International Day of Prayer for North Korea on Sunday, April 27, and an 11 am freedom rally Tuesday, April 29, at the US Congress at Capitol Hill with North Korean defectors, organizers said.
“Time is running out on the Six Party Talks [the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and host China] and the administration [of US President George W. Bush] is losing patience,” said Suzanne Scholte, president of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, an umbrella group of organizations supporting the Freedom Week.
"Despite over a year of negotiations in which human rights was intentionally ignored, no substantive progress has been made except, of course, for [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-il, who got his $25 million laundered for him," she said, referring to a settled dispute with the US money frozen in a bank in Macao. He also received, "heavy fuel oil deliveries to strengthen his regime,” Scholte claimed.
NUCLEAR PLANT
North Korea’s leader received the incentives after promising to shut down his country’s main nuclear power plant, but Scholte stressed that "claims of success are hollow as the site was just that — "hollow" an empty shell, already obsolete when the Talks started."
She said Kim Jong-il "is continuing to keep the focus on nuclear weapons…Test firing missiles recently is just another indication of how desperate he is to keep everyone talking about his nuclear weapons program, and not the starvation, not the political prison camps, not the public executions, not the desperate refugees fleeing to China.”
Scholte added however that with the "increasing ability of North Koreans to learn about the outside world through information pouring in to North Korea through cell phones, radios, televisions, VCRs, pamphlets, and other means, this is a most critical time for them to know we care about them and are willing to speak out on their behalf."
North Korean authorities have denied human rights abuses saying the people of North Korea praise the "Dear Leader", Kim Jong-il.
