Latest North Korean defectors Stories

-Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Melanie Kirkpatric Pens OpEd Piece Highlighting David Sneddon's Disappearance from China- WASHINGTON, May 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- At least six Americans have been officially held or detained in North Korea since 2009, according to the New York Times, but the abduction of United States citizens likely goes back to 2004 - and beyond, notes the family of missing American David Louis Sneddon. In a Wall Street Journal OpEd piece in late April, a Japanese...

WASHINGTON, April 9, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- At a conference to be held in Washington, D.C. on April 10, the Washington, D.C.-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) will issue a 200 page report, Hidden Gulag: Second Edition, The Lives and Voices of "Those Who are Sent to the Mountains." Authored by human rights specialist David Hawk, the report calls for the dismantlement of the vast North Korean political prisoner camp system in which 150,000 to 200,000 are...

Escapees, Activists and Politicians to Call for Greater U.S. Action to Save Prisoners and Refugees WASHINGTON, April 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- From April 26th to May 2nd, thirty defectors from North Korea -- joined by U.S., South Korean and Japanese activists, politicians, policy experts, veterans and relatives of prisoners -- will hold events across the Washington, DC-area spotlighting the massive human rights abuses in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and exposing China's...

Text of report in English by Czech national public-service news agency CTK Prague, 28 July: Five refugees who fled from North Korea to China have found asylum in the Czech Republic, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Jana Malikova told CTK today. The refugees faced a risk of being expelled home, so Czech Interior Minister Ivan Langer offered them a temporary residence in the Czech Republic, Malikova added. The North Koreans should stay in the Czech Republic until they leave for the United...

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap Seoul, 23 July: Five South Koreans held hostage in Mexico were freed Wednesday [23 July](KST), a Foreign Ministry official in Seoul said, following joint efforts by the two governments to secure their release. "They were safely released at 9 a.m. [2400 gmt] in the morning," the official said, adding the South Koreans were in custody of Mexican police. "The Mexican authorities have applied strong pressure after identifying the...

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap Seoul, July 17 (Yonhap) - A South Korean film depicting the harsh reality of life for North Korean defectors will be screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) this year, the distributor here said Thursday. "Tony Rayns, a programmer for the VIFF, has recently invited us to show the film at the festival. 'Crossing' will be shown at the section of Dragons and Tigers, a programme introducing films of East Asia," an...

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap SEOUL, July 11 (Yonhap) - The shooting death of a South Korean tourist to a North Korean resort on Friday, the first such incident since the unprecedented tourism programme was launched nearly 10 years ago, is a tragedy that could have been foreseen, if not prevented, considering the danger in the area that was once home to the communist nation's submarine unit, officials said. The 50-year-old South Korean female was shot and...

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai police said on Tuesday they had detained 169 North Koreans in a raid on a house in a Bangkok suburb after neighbors became suspicious of the number of people in it. "This is the biggest single arrest of North Koreans" in Thailand, Police Major General Pramoj Pathumwong told Reuters. The North Koreans, mostly women and children, had entered Thailand illegally and were staying in the house with 16 compatriots who had travel documents from the United Nations High...

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea has arrested a suspected North Korean spy trying to enter the country at a time when tensions are running high on the peninsula, Yonhap news agency reported on Monday. The arrest report comes after North Korea defied international warnings and test fired seven missiles on July 5. News reports from the United States last week said North Korea may be preparing to conduct its first nuclear weapons test. South Korean intelligence agencies were not immediately...

By Jon Herskovitz SEOUL (Reuters) - The Spice Girls never had to worry about becoming political prisoners and Britney Spears never had to remember the words of the "Song of Coast Artillerymen," but the members of Tallae Music Band surely did. The group is made up of five young women who put their lives at risk to leave Stalinist North Korea. Now they dream of making it big in the capitalist South's pop music market. With two accordions, a song book of tunes favored by the senior set...